Trichy: Despite the crackdown on the sale of banned lottery in the last couple of weeks, the brazen activities of the offenders have been keeping the city police on their toes with the cops hunting for the kingpin of the network. The arrest of six more people found selling banned lottery tickets on Wednesday showed how deep-rooted the system was.On getting information about the illegal activity in their jurisdiction, the Gandhi Market police had searched for the sellers in the market. They found V Band Sundaram, 59, from Palakkarai selling the three-digit numbers printed on paper to customers while two more people were caught near the Gandhi market gate. The police arrested A Abdul Mannan, 39, from Kattur and C Manikandan, 30, from Kallukuzhi in Trichy and seized a paper with three-digit numbers printed.The Cantonment police, airport police and Palakkarai police also arrested – V Raja, 25, from Palakkarai, P Jothiraj, 50, from Azhagar Nagar and B Ilayaraj, 35, from Sangiliyandapuram respectively on Wednesday. They were booked for selling the lottery ticket numbers. Though illegal lottery sale has been going on across the city, its prevalence was high in Gandhi market and Palakkarai areas. The daily wage labourers in the areas were the regular customers falling prey to the fake lucky draw.In the drive that has been going on for the past two weeks, the police arrested nearly 40 people in the city alone. A senior police officer said that their next move was to arrest the key man controlling the network in the city. It may be recalled that police arrested S V R Manoharan who controlled illegal lottery in the city in July 2017. But, he was released on bail.

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