Action against owners for any crime in hotels: Jt CP Rajvardhan

Nagpur: Joint commissioner of police Rajvardhan said on Tuesday that hotel owners would be held responsible and booked for any kind of untoward incident on their premises. Rajvardhan, a no-nonsense cop, had earlier invoked section 144 of Criminal Procedure Code to issue an instruction in March this year, urging hotel managements to submit details of their employees at local police stations, following a murder at Hotel Skylark on Central Avenue. City police top brass had taken the policy decision to get background of hotel employees verified after Vivek Jain, manager of orchestra at the hotel, was shot dead by one of the bouncers at the bar. The culprit, Ramzan Shah alias Dholwala, had several offences against him, and was employed at the hotel despite his serious criminal past. Rajvardhan said the work of verification is underway at the police station level with zonal DCPs supervising the process. “Earlier, hotel owners would not be charged in any untoward incident on their premises. It would only be the participants of such commotions or ruckus who faced the music. But now hotel owners would not be spared,” said Rajvardhan. He also said that failure of the hotel owners to comply with the instructions issued under 144 CrPC would mean legal action under section 188 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) for disobeying orders of an officer.