The Delhi Police Special Cell made its 29th arrest in the Indian Premier League spot-fixing case when it picked up an alleged fixer-bookie from Ahmedabad on Thursday.
Even as the police on Friday interrogated the arrested person, Jeetendra Jain alias Jeetu, to probe his role further and claimed that he was an important catch, what has emerged so far indicates that he supplied money to bookies Chand, Manan and Amit Singh who passed it on to the cricketers along with instructions to fix the matches, said the police.
“Our team had gone to Ahmedabad to arrest him on May 16 when the three cricketers and other bookies, including some he was in touch with, were arrested. A day before those arrests, i.e. on May 15, he had gone to a nearby religious site and it seems he came to know about the situation and went underground and avoided returning to Ahmedabad,” said a senior police officer.
Jeetu is learnt to have gone to places such as Mumbai, Rajasthan and Punjab in the period when he was absconding and suspecting that he had fled the country the police had even issued a Red Corner Notice for him. The officer said they have issued similar notices for several others as well.
On Friday, Jeetu was produced at the Saket Court which remanded him to four days’ police custody.
All accused in the spot-fixing case have been booked under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) and investigations so far have revealed that the mastermind of the entire betting-cum-fixing racket is underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, who not only runs the business in India through a wide network of conduits and bookies, but also makes investments in the trade himself.
Of the 28 arrested earlier, 21 including cricketer S. Sreesanth, are out on bail while the bail applications of seven others are currently pending in the court.
Sources in the police said that the charge sheet in the case was likely to be filed by next month.
