Rajeev Pillai denies hand in spot-fixing racket

Rajeev Pillai says he was Sreesanth for professional reasons.

Rajeev Pillai, actor, has said that he has nothing to do with spot-fixing which led to the arrest of the cricketer S. Sreesanth.

It emerged on Tuesday that Mr. Pillai, member of Kerala Strikers, the Celebrity Cricket League team representing the Malayalam film fraternity, was with Sreesanth when the Delhi police intercepted the cricketer in Mumbai.

The actor said that he had happened to be in Mumbai on the eventful night strictly for professional reasons.

“I am doing the lead role in the Hindi movie

Gurudakshina . Sreesanth had agreed to do a guest role in the film,” Mr. Pillai said.

He had met Sreesanth and the director of the movie to discuss the project. Mr. Pillai and Sreesanth then went to attend a party thrown by a company managing the cricketer. “We were intercepted by the police while returning from the party. The police officials were well behaved and asked my details. They were apparently shadowing Sreesanth, and said they had nothing to do with me,” Mr. Pillai said.

Before letting him go, the police asked the actor to call Jiju Janardanan, allegedly the go-between for Sreesanth and the bookies, from his cellphone.

“Maybe they thought that Jiju would not pick up their call. I obeyed their instruction, and told Jiju that the police have intercepted Sreesanth, and asked him to come to the spot. I took the first available flight back home the next morning,” he said.