As the cricket buffs across the region watching the live streaming of “Uva T20 Premier League” were bowled out after realizing that the game, stated to be held in Sri Lanka with Lankan players participating in it, turned out to be a local match being played in a village stadium in Mohali’s rural area, Punjab Police on Monday arrested the alleged kingpin Ravinder Dandiwal, and two others. Already on its radar since past four years, the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) Anti Corruption Unit (ACU) is also reaching the state capital, Chandigarh, on Tuesday to share and gather information on Dandiwal.
Dandiwal has arrested the police for his alleged role in organizing a T20 game at Sawara village in Mohali which was streamed online as a match happening in Sri Lanka. A game was played on June 29 at Sawara village, 16 km from Chandigarh, but was streamed as a ‘Uva T20 League’ match in Sri Lanka’s Badulla city — the home of the Uva Province Cricket Association (UPCA).
Both UPCA and Sri Lanka Cricket have denied their involvement in the said league.Notably, Dandiwal has been on BCCI’s radar for the past four years and last week emerged as the alleged kingpin of an international tennis match-fixing syndicate. “Whatever information we have we will pass it on to Punjab Police, if it helps them in their investigation or whatever we can gather from them, we will gather it. Our team will be from Delhi,” the BCCI ACU chief Ajit Singh told PTI.
The police have also seized some laptops, mobile phones and documents from Dandiwal. The preliminary investigations reveal that Dandiwal, an original resident of Rajasthan, had organized fraudulent tournaments in the past as well.Police had got vital clues about Dandiwal from the two other accused, Pankaj and Raju, arrested on Thursday.Mohali Police, led by the SSP Kuldeep Singh Chahal arrested three bookies who were involved in not only betting but were also indulging in playing fraud with the public by organizing the cricket matches in Swara village but were showing these as being held in Sri Lanka.
“A case was registered on July 2 under sections 420, 120-B IPC, 13A,-3-67 G Act at Police Station Sadar in Kharar against Pankaj Kumar Arora and others,” said Chahal.
He said that during the investigation, it was revealed that the accused Pankaj Kumar Arora in league with his accomplice Goldy, booked the ground of stoker cricket academy in village Swara from June 29 to July 5 and formed four teams and held a cricket series named UVA-T 20-Premier League.“The said league was held in Swara village but was shown as being held in Sri Lanka and relayed on various social media apps such as fancode APP, Diamond, Sky, Lotus, Tenbet, Spin, Punjab Exchange, for the purpose of earning huge amounts of money through betting,” he said.
The investigation of the case also lead to the arrest of accused Rajesh Garg alias Raju Kalia and two laptops, five mobile phones were recovered from his possession and two mobile phones were recovered from Pankaj Kumar Arora.
The further interrogation of these two resulted in the arrest of Ravinder Singh Dandiwal, he added.Chahal said that Dandiwal organized such fraudulent tournaments for many years in Mohali, Amritsar and Bhopal after forming a club named Cricket Club of India (CCI) in 2009. He also had links with various other big fishes in the world of betting. Further investigations in the case are on.
MODUS OPERANDI
The case of the fake cricket match came to the light on the complaint of Parminder Singh, a resident of Kharar town. Official sources said the police have sent a notice to YouTube for airing the match. “All the players who were hired for the cricket match were small-time players. They were offered Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 for playing the game. The role of some Ranji players in hosting the match is also under investigation,” a senior police official said.
He said that the players with dark tan skins were selected for the match so that they looked alike Sri Lankans. “When the match was being aired, suddenly a camera captured some farmers working in a rice field. That raised a suspicion that the match is not being played in a stadium,” said a police official.