Birthday celebration, unity in Mumbai lock-up

It was not a part of any planned surprise to celebrate Siddhant’s 25th birthday in a police lock-up. Nor did Brenden, a stranger, have any intention of joining them to raise a toast.

However, all these youngsters had no option but to cut the cake in the lock-up at Andheri police station having been picked up by the police from a restaurant-cum-bar, which was the original party venue.

The Mumbai police have been on an over-drive for the past one week, raiding all dance bars in the city after home minister RR Patil sounded off a warning to police commissioner Sanjeev Dayal. However, it seems in their enthusiasm to please Patil, the Andheri (East) police on Thursday went a step ahead and raided a beer bar, which was not a dance bar. To top it, they also arrested clueless patrons, some of whom were not even drinking.

As many as 23 customers, most of them youngsters, were picked up by the police alleging that the hotel did not have the requisite licence to sell and serve alcohol. The hotel management, however, said that they have all the required licences and the police had unnecessarily targeted them.

The police insisted that their actions were justified and none of the customers had liquor permits to drink in the beer bar. “We all had a one-day drinking permit but we were still picked up,” said an agitated Arun Ravi, a musician, who had gone to the bar with three friends.

Ravi alleged that a constable, who was part of the raiding team, was drunk. “When everyone questioned the cops about it, an inspector said to us, ‘You don’t need to check him. He has a family’; as if we didn’t,” thundered Ravi.

However, to their utter shock, at 7.30am they were asked to go without being given any explanation about why they were detained all night.

“We were forced to undergo two medical tests and then were just asked to leave early in the morning. The police just called it a bad joke and let us go after verifying if we had filled the ‘arrest’ forms,” Ravi said.

According to the police, while the others were released after a night in detention, 10 customers and 10 staff members were arrested and sent to judicial custody till March 4.