Kanpur: The SWAT team and Kidwai Nagar police raided a hotel in south Kanpur and busted an alleged gambling racket late Wednesday, arresting 13 people, including a businessman, a property dealer and a mobile shop owner. Police recovered Rs 5.5 lakh in cash, while the alleged kingpin managed to escape.ADCP (Operations and South) Sumit Sudhakar Ramteke said police had been receiving information for nearly one-and-a-half months that gambling was being organised at the hotel in Usmanpur under the Kidwai Nagar police station limits. After verifying the inputs, the SWAT team, along with Kidwai Nagar police, conducted a late-night raid on Wednesday and caught 13 people allegedly gambling inside a hotel room.Those arrested were identified as Lav Singh of Juhi area in Kanpur, businessman Gurudev Singh of Govind Nagar, mobile shop owner Gaurav Bajaj of Barra, Himanshu Gupta and Vinay Kumar of Juhi, farmer Mauji Lal of Unnao, Ajay Shukla of Kalyanpur, mechanic Sushil Kumar Bajpai, Mohit Verma of Anwarganj, Anoop Kumar of Rambagh in Bajaria, Rajat of Kakadeo, Sunny Gautam of Govardhanpurwa and Aman Raj Raghav of Transport Nagar.The alleged mastermind, Sandeep Kumar Sahu, a resident of Parampurwa in Juhi, escaped during the raid. Police have launched a search to trace him.During interrogation, the arrested accused allegedly told police that Sahu used to book hotel rooms under the pretext of business meetings by paying hefty amounts and organised gambling sessions there.Police said Sahu has a criminal history and has previously been jailed in gambling cases registered at Sen Paschim Para and Govind Nagar police stations.
