SOG notice to resorts housing rebel MLAs
Sumedha Sharma
Tribune News Service
Gurugram, July 24
After 15 unsuccessful raids over the past one week, the Rajasthan Police have put two Haryana resorts on notice, seeking CCTV footage from July 10 to establish whether rebel Congress leader Sachin Pilot and MLAs supporting him were lodged there.
Read also:
The notices have been served on ITC Grand Bharat, Tauru, and Best Western Country Inn, Manesar. The resorts have been asked to not just submit the CCTV footage but also the booking record. The resorts, however, are in no mood to oblige, with a senior management official saying: “The orders are not binding on us as these neither come from any court nor the local police in whose jurisdiction the resorts fall.”
Ashok Rathore, Additional DGP (SOG & ATS), told The Tribune: “We have credible inputs that MLA Bhanwar Lal Sharma is staying in one of the two resorts. We have asked the hotel officials to provide us the necessary details. Our teams stationed at Delhi and Manesar since the past one week have been either stopped or intercepted.”
The Rajasthan police had pressed into service three agencies for tracing the rebel MLAs, especially Sharma, whose name figures in FIRs lodged over alleged horse-trading to topple the Gehlot government. These relate to two audio clips. The SOG arrived at Manesar last Friday to collect Sharma’s voice sample but was stopped by the Haryana Police.
After a showdown, the team was allowed inside ITC Grand Bharat but found nobody there. It accused the local police of intentionally holding them up to help Sharma flee.
