Taking cognisance of the charge sheet filed by the Delhi Police in the 2000 match fixing case, a city court here on Tuesday issued summons to three of the five accused, asking them to appear on October 25.
Those summoned are Krishan Kumar, brother of late T-series owner Gulshan Kumar, Rajesh Kalra and Sunil Dara. All three were arrested in April 2000 and released on bail two months later. While the main accused, bookie Sanjiv Chawla, is in U.K., the police do not know the exact whereabouts of his accomplice Manmohan Khattar. Proceedings to declare them absconders in the case would be initiated soon.
Along with the charge sheet, the police have annexed 341 phone call intercepts, which were obtained during surveillance on 10 mobile phones used by the accused persons, including late South African captain Hansie Cronje.
The document reveals that the police achieved a breakthrough after Rama Kant Gupta, who was in the business of export of handicrafts and garments to Europe and the United States, complained that he had received extortion calls from one Shaheen Haithely of Dubai.
The caller had given him two Dubai numbers, including the one through which calls were also exchanged with an Indian mobile number. That number allegedly belonged to Krishan Kumar.
The police zeroed in on nine other Indian mobile numbers that figured in Kumar’s phone call records, which led them to crack the entire bookie-cricketer nexus. The numbers, then purportedly used by Chawla, were also identified.
The frequency of calls between Chawla and his alleged accomplices — Krishan Kumar, Rajesh Kalra, Manmohan and Sunil Dara — during the India-South Africa triangular series in February-March 2000, according to the police, revealed that they were deeply involved in fixing matches.
The police have also obtained 16 video cassettes containing footage of the matches in question played during Pepsi Cup in support of their allegations.
