Cachar Police going after ‘Teer’, apprehends “Kingpin handler” Jahar Paul

In the last one month, Cachar Police secured major success in apprehending drug smugglers from all around the district. ‘World Is Yours’, ‘Heroin’ and many other abusive substances worth more than Rs 10 crore were confiscated. As that goes on, now the Cachar Police under the leadership of SP, Mugdhajyoti Dev Mahanta has started raiding illegal gaming and gambling hubs. 

Yesterday, a team of Dholai Police led by DSP Jinkirani Mahanta arrested Jahar Paul, son of Jamini Paul a resident of the Darmikhal area, located in Dholai constituency. In a statement, Cachar Police announced that Paul is the “kingpin when it comes to handling ending (teer) accounts for the bookmakers located in the headquarters – Shillong.” The statement also indicated that he was operating his illegal act online sitting in Silchar.

‘Teer’ (Ending) is a lottery game widely popular in Shillong. Blogger Mike Marlowe explains the game, “Each day, first at 4 pm and then again at 4.30 pm, groups of archers meet at the Shillong Archery shooting ground for what must be the most unique lottery draw anywhere in the world. I spoke to many people and got a variety of accounts as to what exactly happens (as is the norm in India), but it seems that there is a number of different clubs that take turns to come and shoot. At each session, 20 archers from three different clubs line up to shoot their arrows at a target. So there are 60 archers in total.”

In Shillong, there are many licensed stores that sell ‘Teer’ tickets, “The principal is simple,” writes Marlowe, adding, “You select a number between 1 – 100 and decide how much you want to put down, usually between five and 50 rupees. If you get the winning number, you win 60 X your stake.”

“Once the word is given, they all fire in rapid succession into the target,” Marlowe blogs. All arrows were removed from the target and were counted into groups of ten. Then each group of ten was handed to another official who mounted each group of arrows into a kind of rack. Once the final tally is made, the hundreds are ignored and the final winning number for the lottery is arrived at. So, for example, if a total of 318 arrows are counted. The winning number is 18,” explains the blog.

To read the full Marlowe story which is padded up with some amazing images decoding the nuances of ‘Teer’ click here.