Cricketer S Sreesanth and two other Rajasthan Royals players will face MCOCA charges slapped by the Delhi Police against them on Tuesday in connection with the IPl spot-fixing and betting scandal. While, actor Vindoo Dara Singh and Gurunath Meiyappan were granted bail by a local court in Mumbai on Tuesday.
The development of the day exposed the difference in the way the Maharashtra and Delhi Police have handled the cases. Dealing a knockout punch to the three arrested players of Rajasthan Royals and 23 other accused people in the spot-fixing scandal, Delhi Police invoked Sections 3 and 4 of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against them.
The Investigating Officer (IO) claim that the bookie Ashwni Aggarwal alias Tinku Mandi was part of the organised crime syndicate being run by notorious mafia don and global terrorist Dawood Ibrahim and his trusted lieutenant Chhota Shakeel.
Dawood and Shakeel have now been named in the ongoing case as the fountainhead of international betting and fixing syndicate.
In a significant move, the designated judge at Saket Court issued production warrants against Tinku Mandi and Ramesh Vyas who are in the custody of Mumbai Police. Mandi was arrested by the Special Cell but was taken by Mumbai Police for questioning while Ramesh Vyas, a key player of Dawood’s betting and fixing syndicate was arrested by Mumbai Police on May 12 from a house in Kalbadevi area.
Earlier in the day, the IO of spot-fixing case told the court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate that they have added provisions of MCOCA against all 26 accused persons as they were actively involved in facilitating the illegal acts of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his aide Chhota Shakeel. Ankeet Chavan was granted interim bail for his marriage while Sreesanth’s friend Abhishek Shukla was granted bail too. Other 24 accused persons include former India pacer Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila of Rajasthan Royals player Ajit Chandila, Amit Kumar Singh who played for Rajasthan Royals, former Ranji players Manoj Guddewar and Babu Rao Yadav. Bookies Jiju Janardhan, Deepak Kumar, Manan Bhat, Chandresh Patel, Ramakant Aggarwal, Rakesh, Sunil Bhatia, Kiran Dole, Ashwani Aggarwal, Mohd Yahya, Ajay Goel, love Garg, Amit Gupta, Bhupender Nagar, Sunil Saxena, Sayed Durez Ahmed, bouncer Vikash Chowdhury and businessmen Vinod Sharma and Nitin Jain are also accused in the case.
A senior Delhi Police officer claimed that they have sufficient evidence backed by telephone intercepts and all the evidence collected during the probe will be produced in the court to prove that the bookies were involved with the Underworld in fixing. Calls were made to Dubai and Karachi and other cities and the call intercepts available with Special Cell indicate that Dawood’s international betting syndicate was involved in fixing matched during the recently finished Indian Premier league (IPl).
Adding charges under MCOCA will give Delhi Police the leverage to probe the role of another IPl team whose players are under the lens of the investigators. A Special Cell team has been camping in Hyderabad to arrest a key person who was named by Hyderabad based bookie Mohammad Yahya.
“This was a fit case under Sections 3 and 4 of MCOCA as there was an organised crime syndicate involved. Bookies were in touch with the players and were also acting in tandem with the key members of Dawood. The bookies had applied coercion, threat and intimidation and all the accused persons have gained financially,” the police official said while explaining the reasons behind the application of MCOCA against the accused persons.
In Mumbai, Vindoo Dara Singh, Gurunath Meiyappan and six bookies were also granted the relief of bail on bond of Rs 25,000 each.
The duo moved the bail applications on Monday after the metropolitan magistrate remanded them in judicial custody till June 14.
The court also asked all of them to not leave the country and report to the Crime Branch every alternate day.
Meiyappan (35) was arrested on the night of May 25 for his alleged involvement in the IPl betting scandal. He was in the eye of a storm after actor and a reality show winner Vindoo was arrested on May 22 for his alleged links with bookies, admitted to having placed bets on his behalf.