All 43 charged in illegal casino case

GURGAON: Forty-three people, including five women, were chargesheeted in the case of the illegal casino on Monday. Cops from crime branch in Sector 39 booked 42 people under Section 188 of IPC for disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant and the excise act. Casino owner Naresh Malhotra was chargesheeted only under Section 188.
All accused were arrested from the spot when police busted the illegal casino in DLF Phase-II on January 11.Those arrested included 27 customers who were caught gambling, and 16 employees of which 11 were men and five women. The women were from Nepal and were trained in operating casinos. Those detained included share brokers, businessmen, builders and people from affluent families of Gurgaon, Faridabad and Delhi, police said.
The arrested were sent to judicial remand, during which one of them confessed to being the owner Naresh Malhotra. An Amritsar resident, Malhotra had hired the five women from Kathmandu for a monthly salary of Rs 20,000, to set up the Kathmandu-style casino.
All 43 were later granted bail by a magistrate's court. Malhotra paid a rent of Rs 3 lakh a month for the house in which he ran the operation. The casino was in the basement, with the ground floor serving as reception. An adjoining vacant plot was used as a parking lot.
"We have chargesheeted Malhotra under section 188 of IPC, and the excise act for serving imported liquor," said ACP crime Rajesh Kumar.