Police Raid Raddisson Blu, Seize Drugs, 142 Arrested

The Hyderabad police conducted sudden raids at the Pudding & Mink pub in the Radisson Blu Plaza hotel, located in the upmarket Banjara Hills area, in the early hours of Sunday, and seized different quantities of banned drugs, including cocaine.

The drugs were reportedly found in a bathroom of the pub.

A party with several high profile personalities of the city was going on at the pub when the raids took place.

The police took a total of 142 persons into their custody, most of them the revellers and some of them employees of the pub, for questioning.

Telugu Bigg Boss third season winner and singer Rahul Sipligunj, former MP Anjan Kumar Yadav's son Aravind Kumar Yadav, Guntur MP and TDP leader Jaydev Galla's son Siddarth Galla, and ex-DGP of AP Gautam Sawang's son were among those detained by the police after the raids.

The police also detained the daughter of Telugu actor Nagababu, Niharika Konidela. However, she was let off by the police after being given a clean chit.

The police took the detained persons to the Banjara Hills police station, and let off several of them after serving them notices. The police also filed a case against the pub owners Sathish Raju and Kiran Raju, and took the pub operators Abhishek Vuppala and Anil Kumar into custody. Another accused, Arjun Veeramachineni, is said to be absconding.

The police also reportedly sealed the pub for violating the norms and operating beyond the stipulated time (the raids reportedly happened after 3 am). They also seized the CCTV footage of the pub as part of their investigation.

It is learnt that the police had the pub on their radar for a long time, and that it had a reputation as a place that served alcohol well beyond the legal hours, and that served banned drugs too.