Thiruvananthapuram: Police in Kerala on Tuesday nabbed the suspected key organiser of the rave party held last weekend at a top hotel in the city. Earlier, police had taken into custody, the disc jockey for the show, a Russian national identified as Vasili Markelov (37), alias ‘Psykovsky’.
Seven persons including Markelov had been nabbed from the venue by police over the weekend, and were accused of carrying narcotics with them. The police raid at the party came after a tip-off.
Police took into custody on Tuesday, Mithun C. Vilas, who is suspected to be the chief organiser of the party. Police believe that the rave party was held with prior information, and that the Rs1,000 (Dh57.6) fee per head that was collected would not have sufficed to meet the cost of holding a party at such a top-end hotel.
However, police are yet to ascertain the ingredients of the mixture of powders seized from some of those who attended the party. About 300 persons were reportedly present at the party when the police team conducted the raid. Last year, police had busted another rave party at another hotel in Kochi.
Vilas was taken into custody after a search at his home in Kochi. Early reports indicate that Vilas may have got into the drugs trail through connections in the movie world.
Those reports are another setback for the Malayalam movie world, which is barely recovering from the bad publicity suffered when actor Shine Tom Chacko was arrested earlier this year on the charge of possessing cocaine.
After spending two months in jail, Chacko was released on bail in April, along with his associates Reshma, Blessy Sylvester, Tinsy Babu and Sneha Babu. The bail condition necessitates them to report to police twice a week. Chacko has denied the charges, stating that he suspected that the arrest was a “trap” and that he had not consumed cocaine.
Chacko was arrested by police in January this year. On his release the actor said his top priority was to complete the movie, ‘Viswasam, Athalle Ellam’.
