A team of Anti-Narcotics Cell sleuths on Sunday night raided a pub in Juhu and detained 239 youths attending an alleged rave party there. Nine of those detained were later arrested on charges of possessing, sale and consumption of narcotics. The police seized around 104 tablets of Ecstasy, 850 drops of LSD and charas worth around Rs 9.6 lakh.

The team was led by Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Vishwas Nangre-Patil, who is known for his crack-down on rave parties in Pune.

According to Nangre-Patil, the cell received information that the pub, Bombay 72 degrees East, located near Prithvi theatre was hosting a trance party where narcotics were being used. “Based on the information, we staked out the place for a few days and on getting evidence that narcotics were being circulated, we raided the premises on the night of Sunday. In the raid, we seized drugs and Rs 1.56 lakh in cash. Out of the 239 people detained during the raid, eight, including a woman, were found to be in possession of narcotics and have been arrested. As for the rest, they were sent to various government hospitals for getting their blood and urine samples and were released later.”

The samples will be sent to Kalina laboratory for testing and once the results are available, action will be taken against those test positive for usage of narcotics, Nangre-Patil said. “However, our main focus was on apprehending the peddlers. The youths who were present at the party are victims of this vice and they were not treated like criminals at all,” he said.

The nine arrested have been identified as Rahul Karmarkar, Ben Simone, an Israeli national and the DJ of the trance party, Rajesh Talwar, Salil Roy, Wheelan Bretto, Sameer Shah, Salil Kothari, Kashish Malkani and Anuradha.

When asked to comment on the speculation that some of the people present at the party belonged to the families of Bollywood personalities, Patil said, “Like we have said, the youths have been treated as victims and hence, I do not want to disclose the identities of any of them unless and until their test results are out.”