New Delhi: Actor Shilpa Shetty said she has “never bet on any cricket match ever”. The tweets were retweeted by Raj Kundra. The Delhi police confiscated the passport of Kundra, a British national, on Thursday.
Kundra, who was questioned for about 12 hours on Wednesday, has been asked not to leave the country. He may be called for questioning again. The Delhi police said the passports of Kundra and Goenka had been confiscated to ensure they did not leave the country during the investigation of the IPL spot-fixing scandal.
“Initially Kundra told us that he placed bets only on his team but later he broke down and confessed that he placed bets on many other matches of different IPL teams also,” said a senior police officer.
Delhi police commissioner Neeraj Kumar on Thursday said, “Kundra has admitted to betting. He used to bet on his own team. We have also come to know that he has lost a lot of money in betting, it is being further probed.” He used to bet through Goenka, who is also a bookie, he added.
To another question, he said the Delhi police has not applied MCOCA in the case to deny bail to players. “We have applied the law based on the crime committed,” he said. Sources said the name of Goenka, with whom Kundra owns a steel business, came up during the recording of a statement of Rajasthan Royal player Sidharth Trivedi, a prosecution witness in the case.
In his statement, recorded before a magistrate, sources said Trivedi claimed that Goenka, a resident of Ahmedabad, approached him and sought details about the cricket pitch in Ahmedabad and details about team formations.
Investigators are also analysing the terminology frequently used by bookies during conversations on mobile phones. Some of these terms are “Kha Liya” and “Badha Diya”.
Police sources claimed Kundra was not into fixing and that their questioning was basically about betting. Kundra is the second IPL team owner to be questioned in the scandal, after Chennai Super Kings’ Gurunath Meiyappan who had been arrested but was granted bail. If the charges against the owners are proved, the BCCI can suspend the teams from the IPL.
“So far we have not found evidence of fixing against Kundra. Some of his statements, recorded under CrPC Sec. 161, are still being verified. The Delhi police’s motive is to expose the bookie-fixer nexus and, more importantly, how D-Company controlled spot-fixing in the IPL,” sources said.
They are still looking for two more bookies, whose names were revealed by Kundra and Goenka during questioning, sources said.
When asked whether the police would book the two for under the Gambling Act, an official said, “We are focusing on the spot-fixing case only. We do not want to bifurcate the investigation by registering FIRs against persons indulging in petty crimes. If we start doing this then the number of accused in the spot-fixing case will shoot up to thousands.”
Goenka, who has a 16 per cent share in a steel business with Kundra, was a neighbour of Kundra’s maternal uncle. He went to London to meet Kundra seeking help after his stock brokerage collapsed.
He returned to India in 2008 and opened a company, Ashwini Steels Pvt. Ltd, in Ahmedabad where he met Siddharth Trivedi, the RR player. He often watched the RR matches using a pass provided by Kundra. Goenka then started placing bets on IPL matches.
The Delhi police had earlier created a stir by claiming that Sreesanth and two other players had acted at the command of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Shakeel, among India’s most wanted, as it invoked the stringent MCOCA against 23 accused in the case.
Meanwhile, Ankeet Chavan, an accused in the IPL spot-fixing scandal, surrendered before a Delhi court on Thursday on the expiry of the one-week interim bail he was granted to marry.