After 15 unsuccessful raids, Rajasthan cops seek CCTV footage from 2 Haryana resorts 'housing' rebel Congress MLAs

Sumedha Sharma

Tribune News Service

Gurugram, July 24

After 15 unsuccessful raids over the past week, the Rajasthan police have put two Haryana resorts on notice seeking CCTV footage from July 10 onwards to establish whether they were housing rebel Congress leader Sachin Pilot and party MLAs supporting him.

The police’s special operations group (SOG) has accused Haryana (Nuh and Gurugram) and Delhi police of non-cooperation. It claimed that despite a letter from the Rajasthan DGP, they did not receive any assistance from the police of the two states.

The notices have been served on ITC Grand Bharat, Tauru, and Best Western Country Inn, Manesar, asking the resorts to not just submit the CCTV footage but also the booking records in case any room had been booked in the name of suspended Congress MLA Bhanwar Lal Sharma.

In case there were any bookings in Sharma’s name, then the resorts have been told to provide details, including of check-in, check-out, parking, identity proof, payments, etc.

According to Ashok Rathore, ADG (SOG and ATS), they had ample evidence that Sharma was staying at the Manesar resort.

“We have credible inputs that the MLA was residing in one of the two private resorts. Hence, we have asked the hotel administrations to provide us the necessary details at the earliest,” he said.

A senior SOG member said they had sufficient proof of Sharma staying in Country Inn and switching to Bharat for a few hours, but they had been kept at bay from approaching him by the local police and resort authorities.

The Rajasthan police had pressed into service three agencies for tracing the MLAs, especially Sharma, whose name had allegedly figured in FIRs lodged over horse-trading to topple the Ashok Gehlot government in Rajasthan.

The FIRs relate to two audio clips in which Sharma is purportedly heard allegedly discussing bribe to switch support.

It was last Friday that the SOG had come to Manesar to seek audio samples of Sharma but was stopped by the Haryana Police. After a showdown of almost an hour, the team was allowed inside ITC Grand Bharat but found no one there and returned empty-handed. It accused the local police of intentionally holding them up to help Sharma escape. A similar raid was conducted on July 19 at Country Inn, but the SOG team was not allowed inside.