When the police raided Sun-n-Sheel hotel at Andheri in July for allegedly running a prostitution racket, they were surprised to find a cache of arms.
A bigger surprise lay in store for them. The state forensic laboratory at Kalina, where the arms were sent for ballistic examination, has found them to be toys. "At least 10 long-barrelled rifles were seized," said sources. The police had failed to notice that the rifles had no opening for bullets. When the arms finally came for forensic investigation recently, scientists realised that the police have sent them toy guns. This has now been orally communicated to the MIDC police, who are investigating the case.
The Andheri hotel was raided on July 24 by a special squad of commissioner of police Arup Patnaik after a tip-off that a prostitution racket was being run there. The team of police inspector Rakesh Sharma and six of his colleagues, who entered the hotel in civil clothes, were reportedly assaulted by the hotel staff. Hotel owner Lal Singh and around 50 others were booked under sections of Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act and the Indian Penal Code.
"The hotel had layers of armed guards, defunct lift, which worked only when commanded through hidden switches, and shaft walls to hide prostitutes during raids," said a senior police officer.
"The police personnel might have overlooked the rifles’ engineering. Thinking them to be real ones, they sent them for forensic test," he added.
