Delhi Police have launched a massive manhunt to nab three suspects, who allegedly used to 'fix' deals on behalf of the three arrested cricketers of Rajasthan Royals — S Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan.
The three people, who are being referred to as 'fixers' by the officials of the Special Cell, are from Nagpur and Jaipur and their names cropped up during the interrogation of Mohammed Yahya -- a bookie arrested from Hyderabad airport when he was trying to flee the country. Terming Yahya's arrest as crucial as it helped to solve the jigsaw of spot-fixing to a great extent, police said curtains may be drawn on the case once the fixers are also nabbed.
A senior police official said that names of some suspects had cropped up during an interrogation of an alleged bookie Ashwini Aggarwal alias Tinku Mandey, who is already in custody. Meanwhile, a team of Special Cell personnel was also sent to Goa following this lead. Goa Police sent CCTV grabs of some suspects to their Delhi counterparts, which were shown to Aggarwal who identified them. With the help of these photographs, sources said, police managed to nab these people. Sources said the Delhi Police team was in Goa for the past few days.
Asked about the involvement of some more players, sources said prima facie, they have "found something" against them, but they do not have enough evidence as of now to catch them. "We have crossed the first hurdle. But, that's not enough," a senior police official said.
However, after Delhi Police put the heat on them by busting the spot-fixing scandal by arresting three Rajasthan Royals players, bookies shifted their base to Goa. Delhi Police was tipped by its counterpart -- the Goa Police - that a bookies'0 syndicate was operating there. Goa Police carried out a swift raid and arrested six bookies from Candolim area. All the six arrested bookies have been identified as Ketan Chavda, Amit Papat, Ritesh Patel, Paresh Asarpota, Sandeep Asarpota and Nikunj lalan.
The bookies had taken a house on rent for some 45 days before, and the place was fully wired with latest electronic gizmos to facilitate the fixing.
Goa Director General of Police Kishan Kumar told 'The Pioneer' that all the bookies arrested by them are residents of Mumbai and had shifted base for betting and fixing. Forty four mobile phones, four laptops, one apple iPad, one lCD, four mobile phone charger board having 40 connections, one printer, extension boards, three tv sets and mobile phone signal boosters were recovered from the premises. Police also recovered Rs 26,000 in cash and registered the details of those, who had placed their bets from there, DGP added.
Bhupender Singh Nagar — resident of Uttar Pradesh, and Hyderabad residents Sunil Saxena and Saeed Durray Ahmad were brought by air from Hyderabad.
Alleged conduits between bookies and others, they were produced before magistrate late in the evening at Saket court.and have been sent to three-day police custody till May 30.