Pune, june 28 :THE POLICE busted a rave party at Khalapar, near Karjat, on Sunday night and detained 300 young men and women for a few hours. They also arrested an inspector from the anti- narcotics cell, Anil Jadhav and four others from the spot.
The raid by Mumbai and Raigad police was conducted at the Mount View hotel and resort near Karjat, about 60 km. from Mumbai, between 10.30 pm and 11.15 pm.
Many of the young men and women present belonged to well off families. Sakshi Khanna, the son of actor and BJP politician Vinod Khanna, was one of them.
Although Sakshi was present at the hotel, it is not known whether he consumed any drugs.
Charges will be framed only after the police receive the results of the medical test of blood samples of all those present at the party. The blood pathology report will take 15 days to come, police sources said.
All of them were let off after medical examination, Raigad DSP Namrata Patil said.
“ After receiving the medical reports, we will initiate appropriate action against the consumers ( of drugs),” she added.
To the raiding team’s shock, inspector Anil Jadhav, whose job is to stop such rave parties, was actually in the room where the drugs were kept.
Raigad police officials said that out of the 300, around 65 were girls. The youth had come from places like Mumbai, Pune, Kolhapur and Navi Mumbai. They were all let off after the police had taken down their names and addresses, besides blood samples for testing presence of drugs.
Besides Jadhav, the other four accused are the inspector’s aide Sunil Ghule, party organisers Snehjit Sajalkar and Kushankumar Sujankumar and hotel man ager Rahul Khanna, the superintendent of police Raigad, R. D. Shinde, said. Vickey Shah, another accused, is still on the run, he added.
During his interrogation, Jadhav claimed that he was “ in an undercover operation”. Raigad police officials are not buying the argument as Sunil Ghule is Jadhav’s uncle. Also, police officials believe that Jadhav had a role in organising the event and also in arranging for the drugs. Cops found nearly two kg ganja, 57 gm charas, small quantities of cocaine and other drugs in tablet and powder forms and ` 3.08 lakh in cash.
The party was organised by a firm named Beyond Logic. It had sent invitations for the party through social networking sites such as Facebook. Interestingly, the invites were for a Shanti Jatra 2011 and it was supposed to be a party to promote a Nepali festival dedicated to Mother Earth.
The firm had promised live music by DJs Jane Bourbounese, DJ Starling and DJ Raveholic.
The party which began in the afternoon on Sunday, continued till 10.30 pm when it was finally busted by the cops.
Meanwhile the Maharashtra home department has decided to suspend inspector Jadhav. Home minister R R Patil who addressed a meeting of senior police officials after Jadhav’s arrest said that he has passed orders that henceforth postings in ANC should be done only after a thorough back- manground check of officers. Patil said that postings in such sensitive departments should not be given without a clean chit by the SIT and the CID. An NGO said the growing influence of foreign culture, among other factors, was fuelling such incidents in and around Pune.
Muktangan Mitra, working for the rehabilitation of drug addicts, said that the rising number of students, IT professionals — many of whom are from foreign countries — fuel the rave party tradition.
“ Pune has got the highest number of foreign students so their culture and habits are different,” Sanjay Bhagat from Muktangan Mitra said in Panaji, a few hours after the raid. He said the youth opt for such entertainment as they cannot find other options to kill time on long weekends.
With agency inputs