Gurunath Meiyappan, son-in-law of BCCI president N. Srinivasan, was arrested late on Friday night on charges of betting, conspiracy and cheating after he was questioned by the Mumbai Crime Branch. Meiyappan was arrested after nearly two-and-a-half hours of questioning that began at 9.30 p.m.
Late at night, Mr. Srinivasan told The Hindu that he would not resign. “There is no question of my resigning. Everything’s political; some political parties want to interfere. It is up to Mr. Gurunath now,” he said.
“We interrogated him and based on the information we have, we found his involvement in the offence. We have placed him under arrest,” Himanshu Roy, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) said. He said Meiyappan would be produced in the magistrate court in the next 24 hours.
Mr. Roy, during his brief interaction with the media after the arrest, refused to take questions about whether Vindoo and Meiyappan were brought face to face. Led by Mr. Roy, the interrogating team also included Additional Commissioner of Police Niket Kaushik and Deputy Commissioner Satyanarayana Chaudhary.
Vindoo’s police remand was on Friday extended by a metropolitan court till May 28 following the Crime Branch’s plea so that he could be confronted with Meiyappan.
The 35-year-old Gurunath was in the eye of a huge storm after actor and TV reality show winner Vindoo Dara Singh, arrested for his alleged links to bookies, admitted to having placed bets on his behalf.
Vindoo, winner of reality show Bigg Boss season 3 and son of late wrestler-actor Dara Singh, was allegedly in “frequent touch” with Meiyappan during the IPL matches. The Crime Branch, according to sources, had call data records of conversations between Vindoo and Meiyappan and they are learnt to have confronted the two with the transcripts.
Meiyappan arrived in the city over two hours after the 5 p.m. deadline set by the police for his appearance. Unit number 8 of the Crime Branch was waiting for him at the airport and took him to the police headquarters in south Mumbai. The police had refused to accept a request by Meiyappan’s legal team to extend the deadline to Monday.
Meiyappan was found to be absent at his Chennai residence when a police team went there on Thursday to serve summons on him.
