Hyderabad Police seeks 15 days custody of Pudding & Mink owner, manager

The Hyderabad Police on 6 April filed a petition to the Metropolitan Criminal Court in Nampally requesting to remand the two accused arrested in the Pudding and Mink pub drug bust case for judicial custody for a period of 15 days.

The Inspector of Police, Jubilee Hills requested the remand of Mahadaram Anil Kumar, manager of the pub, and Abhishek Vuppula, the pub partner for judicial custody 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 am, there was a huge crowd and some guests were doing drugs. The police also received information that the pub is supplying/selling cocaine drugs to its customers.

What followed was a raid at 2 am where cops found more than 140 persons consuming liquor on the 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. While former MP Renuka Chowdhary's son-in-law Kiran Raju has been made the fourth accused in the case following the Pub agreement document.

One of the two accused- M Anil Kumar, Manager of the Pub at Radisson Blu Hotel in Hyderabad, confessed to one of the police officers during the drug raid that took place on Sunday at 2: 00 am. during checks, 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 total weight of the drugs seized by the task force is 4.63 grams.

According to the Police, the Partners of the Pudding & Mink Pub allow only an elite selected few customers and their guests to have access to their Pub with the sole intention of earning money and they run the Pub till the early hours of 04:00 am. An App is being maintained wherein CODE is generated for each customer and the customers can have access to the Pub only by entering the CODE at the main entrance.

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.

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. Cancelation will take one-week due process."