On a day of fast developments, the “king” of illegal cricket betting in Gujarat and the country, Dinesh Kalgi, was arrested, released on court order and immediately re-arrested on Friday.

He was also believed to be involved in the spot-fixing of matches involving the Pakistani cricket team.

Kalgi, nicknamed “Sattaking,” was on the police radar for the last couple of years after the Ahmedabad crime branch police detected more than 200 calls from his mobile numbers to various sources in Pakistan.

His direct involvement in cricket betting, however, was unearthed when the police raided an office of a betting network in the Gota locality here a few months ago and found illegal betting taking place during a Sri Lanka-Australia cricket match.

Kalgi gave the police the slip and was since absconding.

He had approached the sessions courts and the Gujarat High Court several times through his lawyers for permission to surrender before the court, but was unwilling to surrender before the police. The courts, however, directed him to surrender to the police.

On prior information that Kalgi was expected at his residence in the Paldi locality, the crime branch police kept a watch and arrested him as soon as he appeared during the early hours of Friday.

He was produced before the metropolitan court in the evening with a demand for 14 days' remand to investigate his network within the country and abroad, but the court ordered his release on bail.

However, as soon as he came out of the court room, police commissioner Amitabh Pathak slapped the non-bailable Prevention of Anti-Social Activities Act on Kalgi and he was re-arrested. He was immediately dispatched to the Jamnagar jail, police said.

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