Party held at bar via social media contact: Cops

Pune: The prosecution on Monday told a magisterial court that contact details on social media were used to get an event manager at the Liquid Leisure Lounge bar on FC Road to organise an illegal late-night party.
Assistant public prosecutor Priyanka Vengurlekar told additional chief judicial magistrate J S Bhatia that police would need sufficient time to unearth all details relating to the illegal party and to establish if and what kind of drugs were consumed at the event.

Earlier, senior inspector Chandrashekar Sawant from Shivajinagar police station produced eight men, including the bar owner, three permit room licence holders who operated the bar, and an event manager, before the court and moved a report through Vengurlekar seeking seven days’ police remand. The court sent the eight men to police custody till June 29.
In a related case, the excise department arrested six waiters of the bar in connection with a substantial stock of liquor, including beer and hard drinks.
The stock was found on the second floor of the bar. “The court has ordered the remand of these six men in excise custody till June 29,” Vengurlekar told TOI.
In the case against the bar owner and the seven others, the prosecutor said that the police needed time to ascertain the identities of all those customers who participated in the illegal party after contacting the event manager through social media.
The arrested men had illegally stocked liquor and the same also needed to be probed, she said.
Vengurlekar further said the police were also searching for one more person in this case and questioning of the eight men was needed to trace and arrest him. Besides, the police were investigating what mediums other than the social media were used for organising the illegal party, she said.
The prosecutor pointed out that the event manager had collected entry fees from the participants either in cash or through UPI payments. The police were investigating the extent of monetary transactions done in this connection. At the same time, the police were trying to find the possible source of any contraband substance used in the party, she said.
One of the two youngsters seen consuming some substance, in the bar’s washroom, in a video that got circulated on the social media appeared to be a minor and the police needed to trace him by questioning the arrested men, she said.