Tamil Nadu CB CID to seek Mumbai police help

June 13, 2013 04:09 am | Updated November 16, 2021 08:42 pm IST - CHENNAI

The Crime Branch CID of the Tamil Nadu police will seek the assistance of its Mumbai counterpart in investigating the cricket betting scandal in which several bookies and businessmen have been arrested. Investigators said the agency would write to the authorities concerned seeking to access the statements of Chennai Super Kings’ Gurunath Meiyappan and Chennai hotelier Vikram Agarwal recorded by the Mumbai Crime Branch, police sources said on Wednesday

Mr. Agarwal is in CB CID custody after he was arrested on charges of betting and allowing a bookie to operate on his hotel premises. Since the investigation revealed that the hotelier was closely associated with Mr. Meiyappan, it was decided to access the statements given by the duo to the Mumbai Crime Branch

“We will be writing to the Mumbai Police Commissioner in this regard. He [Mr. Agarwal] has made several calls to Mr. Meiyappan during the IPL season. Since both were good friends for a long time, it is possible that Mr. Meiyappan might have shared certain information regarding pitch conditions or team strategies with the hotelier. Maybe he was unaware that the inputs were used to organise betting …,” a CB CID officer told The Hindu.

Investigators were analysing the pattern, duration and frequency of calls between the hotelier and Mr. Meiyappan. “We want to compare the statements of Mr. Agarwal given to the CBCID and the Mumbai Crime Branch to check contradictions. Being the son-in-law of the then BCCI president N. Srinivasan, it is possible that Mr. Meiyappan had privileged information regarding IPL team strategies etc…” he said, preferring not to be quoted

Parrying questions on when Mr. Meiyappan would be summoned by the CB CID, the officer said all concerned in the scandal would be questioned at the appropriate time. “The agency would thoroughly investigate and peruse all available documents before seeking anybody’s presence for interrogation. We do not want to jump to conclusions… our enquiry is based on specific statements given by accused persons and the evidence available to corroborate the same,” he added

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.