22 yards of deceit continues .........

After a couple of days, two Detectives of the Yard, namely Bruce Hornbury and Martin Hawkins, were in my office to seek help in pursuing local enquiries on Aushim Khetrapal. I extended whatever help that was possible at my end. They returned a happy lot.

This, more or less, coincided with the commencement of the Cricket Match Fixing enquiry by the CBI. Later, I was informed the Scotland Yard’s enquiry didn’t lead to prosecution of the suspects and Aushim Khetrapal et al are a free lot today. Reportedly, Aushim is a movie actor, director and producer now.

Thirteen years rolled by and came April, 2013. Much like Sub Inspector Ishwar Singh’s
serendipitous listening into telephonic chatter of Hansie Cronje, Inspector Badrish Dutt (now no more) of Delhi Police Special Cell, while monitoring phones connected with terrorists and underworld elements, heard conversations between individuals, who sounded like cricket
bookies, attempting to contact cricketers playing the Indian Premier League-6. The inspector informed his superiors, including me, immediately. I was then the Commissioner of Police, Delhi and closely monitored the progress of the operation. One lead in the monitoring of phones led to another and three cricketers and numerous bookies were now on our radar.

The interceptions revealed a wide network of bookies and fixers taking orders from none other than Dawood Ibrahim himself, through an intricate web of intermediaries. Three cricketers namely Ankeet Chavan, Ajit Chandila and S. Sreesanth, all playing for Rajasthan Royals, seemed compromised, ready to do the bidding of fixers. For money, they were prepared to underperform, after giving specific signals from the playing arena to their respective ‘handlers’ present in the stands.

To be continued.....