The noose around disgraced cricketer Sreesanth tightened further with the Delhi Police recovering huge bills paid with the slush money that the cricketer had received from bookies for spot-fixing.
Delhi Police took Sreesanth to Jaipur on Monday to recover the pricy Blackberry Z10 mobile which he had gifted to his girlfriend. Sreesanth had paid for the phone, which costs around Rs 42,000 and other expensive articles with slush money.
Delhi Police officials said that the cricketer had also spent Rs 1.95 lakh at a Diesel store in Mumbai where he shopped for apparels, including denims, before the match on May 15.
“The bills of these purchases have also been recovered. Sreesanth paid the full amount of his purchases in hard cash. Police intends to question the store manager too. It has also been revealed that the cricketer spent lavishly on parties,” police said.
In a related development, the Special Cell arrested Babu Rao Yadav a former Ranji Trophy player of the Indian Railways. It is alleged that Yadav was involved with bookies and had links with Ajit Chandila. Delhi Police took Sreesanth to his girlfriend Sakshi Shah's house in Jaipur late on Monday night to recover the phone he had gifted her. The expensive gadget was recovered on the instance of Sreesanth.
Without keeping the local police in the loop, Sreesanth was taken to Sodala locality, where Sakshi Shah lives with her father Atul Shah, an employee of Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation.
Sources revealed that his girlfriend had no involvement in the case and was unaware of the dubious activities of the cricketer.Delhi Police on Tuesday also tried to find out whether it was Sakshi Dhoni, wife of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who had introduced Sreesanth to Sakshi Shah in whose house he had dinner with Jiju and some others on May 5.
According to source, while introducing Sreesanth to Sakshi Shah, the wife of the Indian cricket captain told him that she was an excellent cook of laal Maans (red meat).
Sakshi Shah was also present in the SMS stadium, where a match between RR and CSK was being played.Sources said, while returning to Delhi, the police also took Sreesanth to the hotel in Jaipur, where he had stayed during his visit.
He was brought back to the Capital on Tuesday morning to be produced in court.The three tainted players and seven bookies were produced in court and were remanded to police custody for five more days for interrogation.
However, the court sent four arrested bookies, Rakesh Oberoi, Dipit Garg, Ajay Goel and Amit Gupta, to jail till June 4 as the Special Cell of Delhi Police submitted that their custodial interrogation was over.Meanwhile, another first class player Babu Rao Yadav was arrested by the Special Cell on account of his shady links with Ajit Chandila.
Yadav, who hails from Nagpur, played the rebel Indian Cricket league (ICl) in the year 2007 and 2008. During this time he became acquainted with Sunil Bhatia, a bookie and had meetings with him. It was Yadav who introduced Bhatia to Chandila, police officials said.
Police sent voice samples of nine people for forensic examination including that of Sreesanth and Ankeet Chavan.Sreesanth's voice sample was sent to ascertain whether his voice matched with any of the calls intercepted as he did not talk to anyone directly but spoke through Jiju Janadhna's phone. Jiju is also in Delhi Police custody for his alleged involvement in the spot fixing scandal. Handwriting samples of the three arrested players will also be collected.
The Investigating Officer added Section 409 of the Indian Penal Code against the arrested players after Rajasthan Royals lodged a complaint against them.
The complainant reportedly told the police that while signing the contract the players had pledged to abide by the rules and regulations of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, International Cricket Council, and the IPl.
“The players had indulged in illegal practices by doing spot-fixing for their personal motive and financial gains. The players had also fundamentally eroded the sanctity of the game and cheated,” the complainant said.
They sought registration of the case under Section 420 (cheating), 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 409 (Criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent). Police added Section 409 into the case which already has sections 420 and 120-B.
Meanwhile, Ranjit Barthakur the chairperson of Rajasthan Royals, who on Monday gave the boot to Sreesanth and the other two tainted players, met Special Cell officials at lodhi Road. Barthakur steered clear of the waiting media persons and did not respond to their queries.