Gurunath arrested

MUMBAI, May 24:
Gurunath Meiyappan, son-in-law of BCCI President N Srinivasan and owner of Chennai Super Kings, was arrested here late tonight for his alleged involvement in betting on IPL matches, raising questions over the future of the franchise.
“We have interrogated Gurunath based on information we have. We have found his involvement in the offence related to IPL betting case. We have placed him under arrest”, Joint Commissioner (Crime) of Mumbai Police Himanshu Roy told reporters.
The 35-year-old Gurunath was summoned by Mumbai Police for questioning after actor Vindoo Dara Singh implicated him in betting.
Gurunath flew here by a chartered aircraft from Madurai a little after missing the 5 pm deadline set by police for questioning.
Gurunath reached Mumbai late in the evening accompanied by noted Chennai lawyer P S Raman.
He was taken from the Mumbai airport to the Crime Branch headquarters and subjected to interrogation before being arrested.
Gurunath was arrested after nearly three hours of questioning that began at 9.30 pm, Roy said adding he will be produced before a metropolitan court tomorrow.
The honcho of CSK, twice IPL champions, Gurunath, was in the eye of a huge storm after actor and TV reality show winner Vindoo admitted to having placed bets on his behalf.
Vindoo, winner of reality show Bigg Boss Season 3 and son of late wrestler-actor Dara Singh, was allegedly in “frequent touch” with Gurunath during the IPL matches and was claimed to have told Mumbai Crime Branch that the CSK owner had lost Rs 1 crore through betting.
The Crime Branch, according to sources, had call data records of conversations between Vindoo and Meiyappan and they were learnt to have confronted the two with the transcripts.
Though Roy did not say during his post-arrest media briefing about whether Meiyappan was also involved in spot-fixing of IPL matches, he had earlier said strong suspicions did exist.
“We suspect Meiyappan gave inside information to arrested actor Vindoo Randhawa who passed on those to the bookies,” Roy had told reporters ahead of Meiyappan’s questioning.
With Meiyappan’s arrest, the pressure on Srinivasan for his resignation is set to mount further as several of his rivals in the cricket establishment have already started gunning for him.
Vindoo, whose police remand was today extended by a metropolitan court till May 28 following crime branch’s prayer so that he could be confronted with Meiyappan, was alleged to have placed bets through absconding bookies Jupiter, Pavan Jaipur and Sanjay Jaipur. Vindoo himself also used to accept bets from others and forwarded them to these men.
The actor, who has emerged as a key figure in the betting scandal, according to Crime Branch, had facilitated the escape of Pawan and Sanjay to Dubai as the bookies faced the heat following unravelling of the spot-fixing scam by Delhi Police with the arrest of three Rajasthan Royals players including India speedster S Sreesanth.
He is also alleged to have sent a parcel to controversial Pakistani umpire Asad Rauf on behalf of bookie Pawan Jaipur, which is yet to be traced by the Crime Branch.
In attempts to cut losses, India Cements, which owns Chennai Superkings and is run by Srinivasan, sought to distance itself from Gurunath, saying he is neither the owner nor the CEO or the Team Principal of CSK.
“Mr Gurunath is only one of the Members (Honorary) of the Management team of CSK. India Cements follows zero tolerance policy and if anyone is proved guilty, strict action will be taken immediately.
“India Cements assures full cooperation with BCCI and the law enforcement authorities,” a statement issued by T S Raghupathy, Executive President of the company, said.
However, woes for Srinivasan appeared to be mounting with demands for his resignation getting louder.
NCP headed by Sharad Pawar, a former BCCI President, demanded Srinivasan quit immediately “if he has any sense of morality and public accountability”.
Party spokesman D P Tripathi told a press conference that Srinivasan was under a shadow of doubt after his son-in-law had been summoned by Mumbai Police for questioning.
Sahara Group chief Subrata Roy, whose team Pune Warriors exited the IPL couple of days ago, also demanded Srinivasan’s resignation and his replacement by Sharad Pawar.
Questioning Srinivasan’s conflict of interest in the game, Roy said Chennai Super Kings’ contract should be terminated immediately in the wake of franchise owner Gurunath’s name cropping up in the spot-fixing scandal.
“If a franchise is involved in betting their contract should immediately be scrapped. If a owner is involved in betting it’s wrong,” he said.
As the spot-fixing saga continued, a middle-aged man, who is associated with Bollywood and had alleged links with the underworld, was arrested at Hyderabad airport in connection with the IPL spot-fixing scandal minutes before he was to board an aircraft to flee to Dubai.
Investigators claimed that Mohd Yahya was in touch with players of more than one team, including Rajasthan Royals, to spot-fix matches for bookies.
They also believe that his arrest early this morning may lead the investigators to the “doors of another IPL team” which is alleged to be involved in the betting racket.
Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar yesterday said that at least three more players and one more IPL team is under the scanner for spot-fixing in the tournament.
Yahya, who hails from Hyderabad and currently a resident of Mumbai, was arrested from Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in the Andhra Pradesh capital, Kumar said. “He was trying to flee to Dubai when we caught him,” Kumar told reporters.
Rattled by the scandal, IPL Chairman Rajiv Shukla and BCCI vice-President Arun Jaitley today met Law Minister Kapil Sibal, demanding that a strong anti-fixing legislation be “enacted as soon as possible”.
“Today Arun Jaitley, who is a BCCI vice-President and the Chairman of the Disciplinary Committee and met Law Minister Mr Kapil Sibal and requested that the strongest possible law should be made to crack down on match-fixing,” Shukla said.
“We welcome the initiative. The strongest possible punishment should be given. We want a law to be enacted as quickly as possible because in the absence of a law, these people are taking advantage,” he said.
“We will soon meet the Sports Minister (Jitendra Singh) because he also wants a strong law. We will request him that a law should be made,” he added.
Asked if Srinivasan should resign owning moral responsibility, Shukla said, “The (BCCI’s) Ravi Sawani Committee is already investigating. Let him submit a report. The Disciplinary Committee will take a final view on it.”
“Let the Mumbai Police submit its report on the matter,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Delhi Police was today pulled up for “misleading” and “hiding information” from a court here in the IPL spot-fixing scandal case in which five accused were remanded to judicial custody till June 4.
The court said the police are trying to mislead it and is seeking extension of police custody of two of the five accused without giving any reasonable grounds.
Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Lokesh Kumar Sharma said the application of the Delhi Police seeking extension of five days custody of two arrested bookies, Kiran Dole and Sunil Bhatia, have been written in a “very cryptic manner”.
“It becomes very clear that the same (application) has been drafted in a very cryptic manner. Instead of disclosing the facts, it (police) is hiding information from the court. It is not clear what the agency has been doing with the two accused (Dole and Bhatia) for the past five days,” the CMM said.
“It appears that by prolonging police custody remand, the investigating agency is trying to shield its own lacunae. The application for police custody remand is dismissed and accused are remanded to judicial custody till June 4,” it said.
Besides Dole and Bhatia, the court remanded co-accused — Ramakant Aggarwal, a bookie, Manish Guddewar, a former Ranji player of Vidarbha, and Amit Kumar Singh, a former IPL player associated with the Rajasthan Royals franchise — to judicial custody till June 4.
Aggarwal and Singh were produced two days before expiry of their police custody as their interrogation was complete, the police said, adding they did not need further custodial interrogation of Guddewar as well.
After being repeatedly asked by the court about the reason for extension of police custody of Bhatia and Dole, prosecutor Rajiv Mohan said the conspiracy was started by the two and they have to be confronted with the other arrested persons.
Mohan said the police have to arrest other co-accused from various places, including Mumbai, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Nagpur, and it need to unearth the whole conspiracy.
The police said they are yet to decode the name of several other persons involved in the scandal and its teams are already stationed at Hyderabad and Mumbai to apprehend others involved in the case.
The argument, however, failed to convince the judge who said “what were you doing for the past five days with these accused if you have not been able to decode the nicknames of other persons involved in the case?.
“The police have not even given the names and addresses of the persons who have been arrested at the instance of these two accused (Bhatia and Dole).”
The court was referring to the nicknames that had cropped up in the conversations between bookies and players involved in the scandal.
During the proceedings, the court also asked the investigating officer to give him the case diary and after going through it, the CMM said “no disclosure statement has been attached to it”.
Opposing the police’ custody plea, the lawyer for Bhatia and Dole said the agency “has not given the list of those who are to be arrested and it does not need to interrogate and recover anything else from my clients”.
Meanwhile, the lawyer for former Ranji player Guddewar moved an application saying the player should be kept in a separate cell in Tihar as lots of sentiments are attached with the game and if he is kept with hardcore criminals, he can be harmed.
The lawyer also said Guddewar belongs to a well-educated and respected family and he has been falsely implicated in the case.
The court, however, dismissed his plea saying the jail manual does not discriminate between undertrial prisoners and there is nothing special about Guddewar if he is a player.
“So what if he belongs to a well-educated and respected family. Lots of educated people are lodged at Tihar jail,” the Judge said.
“Jail manual does not discriminate between undertrial prisoners having roots in the society. There is no apprehension of any threat to him. Accordingly, the application is dismissed,” the court added.
Guddewar, Bhatia and Dole, all residents of Nagpur, were arrested from Aurangabad by Delhi police on May 19.
Thereafter, Baburao Yadav, Ranji player for Railways, was also arrested.
On May 16, Sreesanth, and his two Rajasthan Royals teammates Ajit Chandila and Ankit Chavan and eight bookies were arrested from Mumbai by Delhi police on the charge of spot-fixing in IPL matches for payments of upto Rs 60 lakhs just for giving away pre-determined number of runs in an over.
Three other bookies were arrested from Delhi on the same date.(PTI)

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