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Substantial evidence to nail top cricketers, says IT official

Onkar Singh in Delhi

The income tax authorities have come across substantial evidence, enough to nail top names in Indian cricket, a senior official in the department who was involved with the raids told rediff.com this morning.

However, he hastened to add that the biggest findings from the operation emerged from the premises of bookies, particularly Mukesh Gupta.

"We are looking into the available evidence. We learnt that he is only a front man and the properties that belong to him are actually benami," he said.

But what came as a big surprise during the raids was the discovery that some Indian cricketers had invested in real estate not only in Australia and the United Kingdom but even in places like Cyprus.

While top CBI officials denied giving a list of players and bookies who they felt were involved in match-fixing to Sports Minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, sources in the investigating agency confirmed that some of its top officials had indeed met Dhindsa before the raids were conducted.

"If you look at the names of the persons who have been raided, with the exception of Dalmiya, Kapil and Mark Mascarenhas, all others had been examined by the CBI. When the cricket players came to us they all said they are clean but gave details about others who they thought were making money out of match-fixing," said an officer of the CBI.

The income tax officials denied that while raiding WorldTel chief Mark Mascarenhas's offices in Bombay and Bangalore they had forgotten about his Delhi office. "We had done our home work. This is not the first time that we are conducting searches or raids. We had been preparing for last one month and it was a difficult task to keep things under wraps. In all, 23 deputy commissioners of income tax were involved in the search operations in 36 places in Delhi and each team comprised 11 members, including two women officers," explained an official.

Indicating that there could be more raids in the coming days, he said the players and bookies who had been raided would be called to the Income Tax office to explain about their assets and foreign exchange spending.

The raids which began Thursday morning at former India captain Kapil Dev's premises concluded only around 1400 IST Friday. However, the other income tax teams which swooped on other residences of cricketers and administrators wound up their search operations in the early hours of Friday.

For the team that went to Manoj Prabhakar's residence it was a quick job. It concluded its search as early as 2030 IST Thursday. That's because while the search operation was on there was a power breakdown in the house and the team was forced to work under the candle light.

The team that went to Ajay Jadeja's house also had a tough outing, winding up their operation at only around 0003 IST Friday. Though no cash was found in the cricketer's flat, officials claimed that they had enough evidence against him. They even searched his girl friend's flat in South Delhi, where security officials unleashed dogs at them. The officer heading the team told the security men that the dogs would be shot if they were not withdrawn. It was only after the the dogs were chained that the tax officials entered the premises of the lady.

Sources in the Income Tax department informed that they had knowledge that a former India captain had gifted a house to a current Indian player, the payment for which was made in foreign exchange in the United Kingdom. They said documentary evidence of the so-called 'gift' came to light during the raid at the residence of the player.

Earlier report: IT search operations continue