HYDERABAD, Nov 6: Police seized thousands of kilograms of mainpuri, gutka and raw material used to prepare the banned items and rounded up 15 people allegedly involved in the business in a secret midnight operation on Sunday.

Mainpuri and gutka, which produce mild intoxication, are mainly used by people from lower income class.

A police spokesman said that the operation began in the wee hours without even informing the police officers or the SHOs of the police stations where the sale of mainpuri and gutka had been gong on unchecked for a long time despite ban.

Police nabbed 19 people after raids in the jurisdictions of City, Gulshan-e-Hali, Phuleli, Fort, Sakhi Pir, Market and Makki Shah police stations. They were identified as Furqan alias Seema, Waseem Ahmed, Maqsood Ahmed, Azeem Shah, Syed Mohsin Shah, Mohammad Aslam, Allauddin, Syed Rashid Ali, Mohammad Irfan, Mohammad Zahid, Zeeshan Ali, Zahid Ahmed, Amjad Hussain, Shamoo Shankar Thakur and Faqeera Shankar Thakur.

Sources in police said that Arif Zai, Arsalan, Salim and Aftab Khan Pathan were arrested from Gulshan-i-Hali and Phuleli while Mohammad Azeem, Qadeer, Irshad Ansari, Nadeem, Shamoo, Rasheed Khan Baloch and Abdul Aziz managed to evade the arrest.

The sources said that police had arrested four more proprietors of a gutka and mainpuri factory but declined to disclose their names. Police neither gave details of cases registered against them nor told where were they rounded up.

The raiding parties seized rustic utensils, dust, wet limestone, gunny bags, packing and cutting machines used in the preparation of the products and thousands of kilograms of mainpuri and gutka ready for sale.