Illegal Lottery concern in Assam State

Illegal Lottery concern in Assam State

Guwahati: (Assam)  “Gambling Addiction” is a serious social malady, and because of this, lotteries have been banned throughout the country. But people find ingenious ways of luring people to ‘try their luck’ and buy a ticket.

The commissioner of police, Guwahati, has alerted all police stations here following a complaint regarding the running of illegal online lotteries in the state.

The lotteries have been banned by the Supreme Court.

“I received the complaint on November 15. The complaint does not mention Guwahati but an alert has been sounded and a notice sent to every police station of the city. We will take action immediately after getting information. We have begun investigations,” Guwahati police commissioner Hiren Chandra Nath said.

Additional deputy commissioner of police (crime) Rosie Kalita told local media , “We have carried out raids in a number of places that used to run illegal lotteries. We have seized property and arrested many people. If we get any more information, we will take stern action.”

The complainant  said the lottery tickets come from New Delhi through courier to Guwahati and other parts of the state. He told a local journalist that the illegal lotteries are run in Bongaigaon, Dimapur, Tinsukia and Kokrajhar as well.

“The lottery results are declared every half an hour from morning to evening. According to information, in Bongaigaon, around Rs 1.5 lakh worth of tickets are sold every half an hour. In Dimapur, the selling rate is around Rs 2.5 lakhs and in Guwahati it is around Rs 1 lakh. In this lottery, each ticket costs Rs 12 and the winner gets Rs 100. It is illegal, but the government does not take any action,” he claimed.

Kaberi Sarma, an official of Gold, an NGO that counsels in addiction matters, said, “Recently, I got a case of lottery addiction from Goalpara district. The impact of this addiction is very high along the Assam Meghalaya border. The number of people who come for counselling in Guwahati is less. Most of the cases are from outside Guwahati. It is one of the most dangerous addictions that affect society. Mainly, youth get addicted.”

Bongaigaon deputy commissioner Biswajit Pegu had banned lottery two years ago.

“Since lottery is banned in the entire state so I had closed it in Bongaigaon”, Biswajit Pegu said.

2 Responses to "Illegal Lottery concern in Assam State"

  1. Kislay Ravi   November 29, 2017 at 10:36 pm

    People having the sick mindset of gather a lot in the less efforts and minimum time is in fact a threat not only to the economy but also a headache for the administration. The lottery practices is one such. It must be checked so as to prevent the citizens to be forbidden from the mind game which eventually is controlled by fake and fraud system.

  2. Nihal kumar dutta   November 25, 2017 at 12:31 pm

    Yes,it is a very good decision taken by the supreme court,that is to ban lottery. Any kind of addiction is bad , whether it is related to smoking or a lottery.people are investing their money as well time in these kinds of stupid thing . And people are unaware of the fact, that they are spoiling their own life day by day.