In the biggest controversy to have hit Indian cricket, the Delhi police special cell arrested three players of the Rajasthan Royals IPL team, including former international cricketer S. Sreesanth, for alleged spot-fixing in the ongoing Indian Premier League. Eleven top bookies have also been arrested from different parts of the country in a fixing racket that appears to have direct links to the underworld.
The other two arrested players are Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan. The bookies include Chandresh Patel, Amit Kumar, Manan and Jiju Janardhan, aka Biju, who is said to be a close associate of Sreesanth, all of whom were arrested from Mumbai. The players and bookies were arrested from Hotel Intercontinental and Trident while Sreesanth was arrested from a friend’s house in Carter Road, Mumbai.
The bookies arrested in Delhi have been identified as Deepak Kumar and Rakesh, aka Rocky. The police has not revealed the identities of the other bookies as investigations are currently on. Sources said one person, identified as Tinku, who is said to be the biggest bookie in Delhi, has also been arrested.
BCCI president N. Srinivasan said a few “bad eggs” would not be allowed to sully the game and the punishment handed down to them would be “sufficient deterrent” for others. “I don’t know about others but I am shocked, the BCCI never expected it. It was a bolt from the blue. We will see whatever is there to be done is done. The sport is clean, we are running it clean and one or two bad eggs cannot sully the game,” Mr Srinivasan told reporters via a video link.
Rajasthan Royals issued a statement saying it was shocked by the development. “We have been informed that three of our players have been called in for investigation on spotfixing in matches. We are completely taken by surprise. We do not have the full facts at this point and are unable to confirm anything,” the statement read. “We are in touch with the BCCI on this matter. We will fully cooperate with the authorities to ensure a thorough investigation. The management at Rajasthan Royals has a zero-tolerance approach to anything that is against the spirit of the game,” it added.
The sports ministry asked the IPL authorities to hand down deterrent punishment to the players.
Investigations started in April when special cell sleuths got a tipoff that at least two bookies based out of Karachi and Dubai, with links to close Dawood aide Chhota Shakeel and Anis Ibrahim, were trying to fix IPL matches. More than 50 phone calls and emails, as well as BBMs and applications like Whatsapp belonging to different bookies were placed under observation. Little did the special cell realise they would stumble upon a landmine of information revealing the involvement of players. It is due to the underworld link that the accused persons will be booked under MCOCA in addition to cheating and criminal conspiracy charges.
Sources said at least two dozen phone calls were traced to Pakistan, particularly Karachi, where Dawood Ibrahim is currently based. These numbers, sources added, belong to bookies acting as fronts for Chhota Shakeel and Anis Ibrahim. Dawood has been involved in the cricket betting racket. Similarly, some Dubai numbers, belonging to one Sunil, were are also under the scanner of the special cell. Investigators suspect that Sunil is the fake identity of a key Dawood aide in Dubai whom they are trying to identify.
Investigations revealed that the three Rajasthan Royals players were allegedly paid between `20 lakhs and `60 lakhs. Delhi police commissioner Neeraj Kumar said the players were to drop hints for bookies, like using accessories like towels, gold chains, wristbands or wristwatches, at the start of the over. The bowlers were asked to concede at least a given number of runs in a pre-determined and mutually decided over. After receiving the signal from the bowler, the bookies would bet heavily and make profits running into thousands of crores.
The special cell deployed their teams in stadiums where they had concrete information about spot-fixing. A specific instance was the Jaipur match on May 5 (Pune Warriors vs Rajasthan Royals). In this match, as allegedly already agreed upon, Ajit Chandila gave 14 runs in the second over of his spell. However, he forgot to give the pre-determined signal, as a result of which bookies could not bet in this match. This led to a lot of arguments and demands that the money advanced to the player be returned.
The second was the match at Mohali on May 9 between Rajasthan Royals and King’s XI Punjab. In this match, it was allegedly decided that Sreesanth would tuck a towel into his trousers before bowling the second over of his spell and also give the bookies enough time to indulge in heavy betting. Sreesanth bowled the first over without displaying a towel. In the second over, he tucked a towel into his trousers and then, allegedly to give bookies time to raise heavy bets, he did some warming-up and stretching exercises. In this over, he gave 13 runs.
In the third instance, during the Mumbai match on Wednesday between Rajasthan Royals and Mumbai Indians, Ajit Chandila allegedly instigated Ankeet Chavan to take `60 lakhs for one over and perform as per the directions of the bookies. He was asked to give 13 or more runs in the second over of his spell. He gave two runs in his first over. In his second over he was hit for a six off the first ball, two runs came off the second ball and another six off the third ball (6+2+6=14), after which he controlled his bowling and gave one more run in the remaining three deliveries. In all, he gave 15 runs in his second over.
The police commissioner said so far they have not found evidence regarding the involvement of the team management or any other players. But they have launched a massive hunt to track some other leading bookies and the money that exchanged hands with the players. “All the players were paid in cash. We are also carrying out forensic scanning of 51 mobile phones, five laptops, one recording machine, etc. which have been seized,” a senior investigating official said.
Initial investigations were started by Inspector Badrish Dutt, considered an expert in technical surveillance, He and a woman companion were found dead in mysterious circumstances at his Gurgaon residence a few days ago. However, Mr Kumar ruled out any link between Badrish’s killing and the spot-fixing case.
Considering the wide scope of investigations, the special cell might rope in other agencies, like the Enforcement Directorate, the income-tax department and the DRI, particularly if there is a hawala link to the case.
All the accused persons, who were produced in a city court, have been remanded in police custody for five days.