Three more arrests have marked another breakthrough by Delhi Police in the sordid IPl spot-fixing saga. The three, including a 32-year-old former Ranji player of Vidarbha, were nabbed during an early morning raid by the special cell in Maharashtra.
Police are now looking for 34-year-old Baburao Algu Yadav, another Ranji player (Railways) who was involved. He also played the Indian Cricket league (ICl). Investigators said more players of other teams and several Ranji cricketers could be involved in the deep-rooted nexus and there was a strong possibility that some matches in the previous seasons of IPl were also spot-fixed.
Ex-Ranji player Manish M Guddewar (32), bookie Sunil Bhatia (44), an Aurangabad-based property dealer, and his associate Kiran Dole alias Munna (42), who hails from Nagpur, were arrested from Aurangabad early on Sunday. According to the police, they ran the racket from Nagpur. “These three are fixers who facilitated meetings between bookies and players and did the on-spot fixing during the match,” said an officer.
He added, “The three were arrested after their phones were put on surveillance. Guddewar used to be Ajit Chandila's neighbour before 2000 and the two practised cricket together. He played Ranji in 2003-2005 and helped Dole and Bhatia meet Chandila to fix matches.”
During IPl matches, the three stayed in Nagpur and Mumbai. Teams of Delhi Police have been sent to collect CCTV footage from hotels where they put up.
Sources said Chandila, who was arrested along with S Sreesanth and Ankit Chavan on Thursday, was in constant touch with 'four sets of bookies' and was willing to be available for fixing matches.
“One should note the role of existing or former players. We have Amit Singh, Jiju Janardhan and Guddewar already in the net. Yadav will also be arrested. The arrested trio was linked to Ashwani Aggarwal, alias Tinku, who is already in police custody. They had several meetings in Mumbai, Delhi, Gurgaon and Chandigarh,” a source added. They have been sent to 5-day police custody.
Investigators have also asked hotels owners in Mumbai, Chandigarh, Kolkata and Hyderabad to provide CCTV footage to scan meetings of the three arrested cricketers with bookies.
EOM