The Mumbai crime branch — probing into the arrests of the bookies in the IPL betting case — on Monday told the court that they want to investigate the involvement of Pakistanis with whom the bookies were in touch, suspecting terror links or links with organised crime syndicates.
The property cell on Monday produced six bookies arrested from Mumbai in connection with the IPL betting racket and the court remanded their police custody till May 22. The arrested six bookies — Ramesh Vyas, Pandurang Kadam, Ashok Vyas, Neeraj Shah. Pravin Bera and Pankaj Shah, alias Lotus — did not only carry out the betting, but were a connecting link between the bookies in Pakistan and Dubai and those in India.
Amongst them, Vyas is being considered as prized catch as he is the middleman who connected Pakistani bookies Dr U.V.L Javed, Master Salman, Sharif Bhai, Rehmat and Kaasim to Indian bookies. These Pakistani bookies are suspected to be associated with the underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s henchman Chhota Shakeel.
The crime branch sleuths also told the court that they are on a lookout for other bookies — Rakesh, Sanjay, Jupiter, Noka (all from Jaipur), Lokesh and Tinku from Delhi, Jatin and Lambu from Gujarat and Kishor from Pune. The court extended the police custody of the accused for two more days.