Acting swiftly on the complaint from the hotel management, the Lashkar police arrested four men said to be Sene members, including its district convener Sanjay. Others in custody are Somashekar, Raja and Raju. The police are on hunt for the other accused in the case.
The incident took place at the Hotel Adhi Manor near the mofussil bus stand around midnight when the group entered the pub all of a sudden and began ransacking it. They abused the occupants of the pub and chased them out, shouting slogans. The men also tried to manhandle a few women present there. They also broke chairs and tables, eyewitnesses said.
In their police statement, the arrested have said that the pub used to be illegally kept open till midnight everyday.
However, police sources said the group tried to extort from the hotel management. When they refused to give in, they launched an attack. “The hotel has the permission to run the pub till midnight. We have booked a case against those arrested and produced them in the Court,” an investigative officer said.
Talking to reporters, Nagendra, manager of the hotel, said a gang of more than ten men barged into the hotel and started throwing things around indiscriminately. They also abused the visitors, including women, following which the occupants ran helter-skelter. “From their slogans, we concluded that they belonged to Sri Rama Sene,” he said.
“We have a valid licence and permission to run the hotel. If we were doing anything wrong, the men must have lodged a police complaint. They cannot take law into their hands,” he said.
Such incidents bring disrepute to the hotel and the city as a whole as lot of tourists arrive here, he added.
