13 cricket bookies arrested in UP

In a night-long swoop, a crack team of Uttar Pradesh's Special Task Force busted a gang of alleged bookies engaged betting on cricket matches.

As many as 13 bookies, allegedly involved in gambling and betting on cricket matches, were arrested from three different cities. While six of them were taken into custody in Lucknow, one was hauled up in Kanpur and a gang of six busted in Agra, the city of the Taj.

In a rare case, the strict provisions of the Gangsters' Act have been invoked against each of the arrested.

"Normally those involved in ordinary gambling or betting were charged under the Gambling Act, but the Gangsters Act empowers the police to use some of its provisions in case of gambling of this nature," state Director General of Police M C Dwivedi told a press conference.

The arrests followed concerted efforts of the STF, which had recently introduced electronic surveillance to keep a tab on certain special crimes in the state.

The STF team under a young IPS officer Arun Kumar, who was responsible for busting the army spy ring in Lucknow sometime back, spent a couple of weeks collecting evidence against the suspects. "Their phones were tapped and conversations recorded to ensure a foolproof case against them," he said.

Enough evidence has also been collected on the bookies' nexus with counterparts in Calcutta, Nagpur, Guwahati, Shillong, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Bikaneer, Shri Ganganagar, Barawal as also Nepal.

Giving details of the modus operandi of the bookies, Arun Kumar, who was also present at the press conference, narrated how the local bookies kept their liaison with their counterparts in Bombay and Delhi, who in turn were in constant touch with their bosses in Dubai and Sharjah.

He was not surprised to find some well known shopkeepers in each of these cities indulging in the clandestine operation.

"In some cases what was displayed in the shop window was only a cover-up while their main business centered around fixing and betting," he pointed out. He also claimed: "We have sufficient reason to believe that those arrested in Lucknow had been involved in the operation for a long time."

The estimated turnover of fixing and betting in a single international cricket match was stated to be to the tune of Rs. 6 billion. In Lucknow, the stakes appeared to be relatively smaller.

"Here, the gambling on a one-day match was just about Rs. 2.5 to 3 million, while in Kanpur it went upto Rs. five million," he pointed out.

Most of the arrested persons were found to be maintaining at least three to four telephone connections at their respective place of work or residence, besides one or two cell phones, that came in handy in the clandestine operation.

With busting of the racket, the STF is hopeful of trapping more persons involved in the chain.

Mail Cricket Editor