New Delhi, May 18 : The three arrested cricketers belonging to Rajasthan Royals - S. Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan - have revealed the names of at least 10 IPL players to Delhi Police during interrogation, police sources said.
The tainted trio said, at least 10 other cricketers were also involved in spot fixing. These 10 players are from five IPL teams. “We are not in a condition to reveal the names of the cricketers because it can hamper our investigation”, said a senior police official.
It has also been revealed that spot fixing was also rampant during IPL5 last year. A tapped conversation between Chandila and bookie after the RR versus Pune Warriors match on May 5, clearly shows spot fixing was prevailing in the earlier IPL edition too.
When the bookie asked Chandila to return the advance of Rs 20 lakh for not giving coded signals for his ‘tainted' second over, Chandila said: “Arre yaar, yeh to picchle saal bhi hua thaa aisa, kya hua.....kar lenge hisaab”.
(well, a similar thing happened too last year, so what?...we will iron things out).
It The role of more players whose names cropped up during interrogation of the arrestedcricketers and bookies in the IPL spot-fixing scandal will also be probed, Delhi Police sources said.
Police claimed that Indian pacer Sreesanth and Ankeet Chavan—two of the three arrested Rajasthan Royal(RR) players—have “confessed” to the spot-fixing charge but the lawyers of the two cricketers denied their involvement.
Delhi Police is also likely to probe some more IPL matches in the current season even as Sreesanth, Chavan and Ajit Chandila—also a RR player—along with 11 other arrested bookies were subjected to interrogation by its Special Cell.
Asked whether women were used to trap or lure players in the spot-fixing racket, sources replied in the affirmative.
It has also emerged that the arrested bookies tried to lure three players, including two foreigners, with the help of Chandila, to be part of the spot-fixing racket.
The players—Brad Hogg, Kevin Cooper and Siddharth Trivedi--, however, spurned their invite to join a party at Jaipur for clinching the deal, the sources said.
Sources said Sreeshant, Chavan and Amit Singh, a cricketer-turned-bookie, broke into tears when they were being grilled by the police sleuths.
From the investigations so far since the arrests yesterday, Chandila is emerging as the main accused among the three cricketers while Chandresh Patel is believed to be the key link among the bookies.
As investigators in Delhi went into the bottom of the spot-fixing scandal that has sparked an outrage, Tamil Nadu police claimed to have busted a separate betting racket relating to IPL matches with the arrest of six bookies in Chennai and recovered Rs 14 lakh in cash.
The suspected mastermind was operating from Delhi, Crime Branch-CID SPs Perumal and S Rajeshwari told reporters in Chennai. The arrests followed searches at 13 locations in Chennai based on a tip-off.
Sreesanth's lawyer insisted his client is “totally innocent.”
Speaking to reporters, Deepak Prakash said, “Sreesanth has been falsely or mistakenly arrested. They (Delhi Police) have got some wrong information or mistakenly arrested him.”
