The City police have initiated a special drive to curb high-stakes gambling in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections. On Tuesday night, the Cantonment police raided National Club near the Secretariat and arrested 38 persons, including government employees, on the charge of wagering money on card games of chance.
Officers said they had seized ₹4 lakh from the accused. They have also booked the secretary of the club, a registered charitable society, under Sections 7 and 8 of the Kerala Gaming Act.
The provisions entail a punishment of up to three months of imprisonment and fine. The police let off the suspects from the station after they posted their bail by furnishing sureties.
The raids came against the backdrop of a heightened vigil against illegal activities in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections. The police had focussed on disrupting the hoarding, possession, transport and use of unaccounted cash for unlawful activities during the sensitive campaign phase.
District Police Chief (Thiruvananthapuram City) Sanjay Kumar Gurudin told The Hindu that playing cards was not illegal.
However, playing cards for money in public or private constituted gambling, which was prohibited. He said the police had ordered the special drive to curb the criminality that invariability came with organised gambling.
Objective
“The objective is to reduce criminal activities in the city surrounding illegal gaming. We have intelligence that rowdy-sheeters and criminals congregate at bars and card gambling centres. Such illegal assemblies often lead to drunken brawls and deadly street fights. Moreover, gambling often results in crimes like kidnapping and extortion to settle gambling debts,” he said.
Another senior officer said there was an anti-corruption dimension to the drive. Often ill-gotten wealth fuelled the illegal gaming economy and gambling often led to corruption by public servants. He said the police would issue notices to bars, hotels and clubs to bar gambling on their premises.
The police said it was legal to play online rummy because the law had deemed it a game of skill. However, other forms of online gambling or betting and bookkeeping were illegal.