The Kathmandu District Administration Office on Tuesday sent nine people in five-day police custody after they were caught gambling at a hotel the previous evening.

Chief District Officer Janak Raj Dahal issued the remand orders against the suspects, police said. 

A police team led by DSP Ranjan Dahal from the Metropolitan Police Circle, Durbarmarg, had arrested the group on Monday evening from Gangaur Regency Boutique Hotel in Kamaladi.

The suspects were identified as Ram Chandra Sanghai, Ashok Agrawal, Purushottam Agrawal, Suresh Agrawal, Govinda Agrawal, Nanda Sharma, Bimal Khetan, Bimal Aahuja, and Nikki Jogai.

“Majority of the arrestees are business persons,” said DSP Raj Kumar KC, spokesperson for the Kathmandu Metropolitan Police Range.

“Police have confiscated Rs 277,000 cash and 171 gambling chips from the suspects,” said KC.
The value of the chips was not immediately known.

According to the data provided by the Metropolitan Police Office, Ranipokhari, police in the last 1o months of this running fiscal year have arrested a total of 125 people from different parts of Kathmandu Valley for illegal gambling.

According to the Gambling Act 1963, those arrested for the first-time in a gambling offence are liable for a fine not exceeding Rs 200. Repeat offenders are liable for a jail sentence ranging from one month to a year.

“The majority of complaints related to gambling are received either from the family members or acquaintances of the gamblers,” said SSP Sushil Kumar Yadav, spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Office, Ranipokhari. “The money seized by police from the gamblers goes to the government's funds.”

Yadav suspects illegal gambling might have increased during more than two months of lockdown. He added that gambling dens operated in private homes are difficult to control.   

The Metropolitan Police Office has come across nearly half a dozen gambling cases during the lockdown.

Meanwhile, police data of the previous three fiscal years show that the number of people arrested for gambling offences has been rising. 

In the fiscal 2016-17, police arrested 1,504 people for illegal gambling from different parts of the country. The number rose to 2,824 in the fiscal year 2017-18. In the fiscal year 2018-19, police detained 2,869 people for illegal gambling, nearly 40 percent of the arrestees (1,161) were from Kathmandu Valley.