Pudding & Mink drug raid: Pub manager, partner in Banjara Hills police custody for 4 days

Hyderabad: A local court has granted permission to take into police custody two persons arrested during the drug raid at Pudding & Mink in Radisson Hotel. The Banjara Hills have taken Abhishek Vuppala and Anil Kumar into four-day custody.

The two have been moved from the Chanchalguda jail to Banjara Hills police station. The cops are trying to identify the people who supplied cocaine to the pub.

On 6 April, the Hyderabad police had filed a petition with a court in Nampally requesting to remand Mahadaram Anil Kumar, manager of the pub, and Abhishek Vuppula, the pub partner, for 15 days.

What happened at Pudding & Mink pub on 3 April?

As per the remand dairy, on 3 April, the task force raided Pudding & Mink, the pub at Radisson Blu Hotel, after receiving credible information that it was open at 4 a.m. They also found out that there was a huge crowd and some guests were doing drugs. The police received information that the pub was supplying/selling cocaine to its customers.

What followed was a raid at 2 a.m where cops found more than 140 persons consuming liquor on the pub premises.

A case was booked against hotel manager Anil Kumar and pub owners Abhishek Vuppala and Arjun Veeramachineni under sections 8(c), 22(b), and 29(1) of the NDPS Act. While Anil and Abhishek have been sent to remand, Arjun is absconding. Former MP Renuka Chowdhary's son-in-law Kiran Raju has been named the fourth accused in the case in accordance with the pub agreement document.

During the raid, five small packets containing a white powder, suspected to be cocaine, were found in one of the plastic containers used to hold drinking straws on the bar counter. The drugs were in the possession of the manager.

The task force seized drugs weighing 4.63 grams. In addition to the drugs and the accused's phones, about 216 cigarette butts (smoked cigarette butts) and used tissue papers were seized as well from the premises.

According to the police, Pudding & Mink allowed only an elite few customers and they operated the pub till the early hours. The pub maintained an app where a code was generated for each customer and the latter could access the pub by entering the code at the main entrance.

Meanwhile, the Telangana Excise and Prohibition department had first indefinitely suspended the license of Pudding & Mink and has now sent a show-cause notice, asking them why their license should not be cancelled.

Speaking to NewsMeter, a senior official from the Excise and Prohibition department said, "The special license granted to five-star hotels allows them to operate 24x7. However, since banned substances (4.64 gms of cocaine) were found in the pub during the raid, this has attracted violation under the Bar Rules. Stage 2 of the case will be issuing the pub management a show-cause notice, asking them why their license should not be cancelled. Based on their explanation, action will be taken. For now, the license has been suspended, indefinitely. Cancellation will take one week."