Chennai: Hotelier Vikram Agga­rwal, arrested by the Tamil Nadu CB-CID in connection with the IPL betting scandal, was more than just a bookie or punter. “He was something like a super bookie, who was in direct touch with match-fixers and controlled a network of bookies,” a CB-CID official disclosed in Friday.
Confirming that Vikram Aggarwal a.k.a Victor was very much in contact with Gurunath Meiyappan, former principal of Chennai Super Kings team, a senior police official said the CB-CID would summon Gurunath soon.
While many bookies we­re depending on websites and other inputs to fina­lise betting odds, Victor always had first-hand inf­o­r­mation on teams, ma­tc­hes and pitches, which pointed to the fact that he had inside information. He was very much in touch with bookies like Uttam Jain alias Kitty, who operated from a room in Aggarwal’s hotel in Egmore, Chennai.
“We will certainly summon Gurunath, who was al­r­eady arrested and gri­lled by the Mumbai police. But, we will wait for inter­rog­ation details of Gu­r­un­a­th and Aggarwal which we have sought from the Mumbai police,” the official ad­ded. Both police teams are pursing different cases.
The bookies we have arrested so far believe that Aggarwal had inside information on IPL teams, matches and pitches. We are not sure if he really had such information or was just boasting.
Wh­atever Aggarwal has told us is to be verified or clarified from certain other people, the official noted. The CB-CID started the crackdown on bookies on May 17 by arresting six of them. So far, the sleuths have arrested 11 people, including Vikram Agga­rwal, Prasanth, president of the association of bookies, and Kitty.
Conditional bail for ‘Victor’
Chennai: The XI metropolitan magistrate court in Saidapet on Friday released hotelier Vikram Aggarwal, arrested in connection with IPL betting recently, on conditional bail.
Magistrate B. Saravanan directed the hotelier, the last and 17th accused arrested in the case, to hand over his passport and sign at the CB-CID office at 10 am every day until further orders.
 
The magistrate, in the order, noted that Vikram was arrested for extending rooms in his hotels to Kitty for conducting betting operation.  During police interrogation, Vik­ram confessed that he also occasionally involved in cricket betting. Vikram was arrested under section 4 (d) Tamil Nadu Gaming Act 1930 and 194 A (A-vi) (b), (c), (d) of Chennai City Police Act 1988. 
 
The magistrate held that the prosecution has not adduced any evidence that he had committed the offence. Besides this, he was detained under bailable sections. Releasing Vikram on bail, the magistrate directed him to furnish a bail bond for Rs 10,000. His counsel S. Karthikeyan completed all the formalities in court. Vikram was released at 6 pm.
 
The CB-CID police arrested 17 persons, including Vikram, kingpi­n Kitty, bookies- Sanjay Bafna, Harish Bajaj, S. Virudhachalam alias Ved­achalam, Deepak Bajaj, Prasanth M. Paun, Lucky alias Narpath, Pappu alias Praveen Kumar, Sunil Bajanlal and Raja. With the release of Vikram, all the 17 persons arrested in the IPL betting racket are out on bail.
 

IPL issue: fresh miscellaneous plea filed
 
Madurai: Alleging that the Indian Premier League “was a tacit arrangement” to satisfy the underworld involving in match fixing and spot fixing, a fresh miscellaneous petition was today filed in the High Court here, seeking a direction to CBI to probe all cricketing “scams” from 2008 with assistance of the Interpol.
 
The plea was part of a writ petition which sought a direction to the Ministry of Youth Welfare and Sports to takeover the management and administration of national cricket from IPL and BCCI. The miscellaneous plea would be taken up for hearing along with the main petition for which reply from the government was pending, on June 20. — PTI