Punjab bookies link in fake cricket team racket

Mumbai : The Mumbai police are investigating the alleged links of three notorious bookies operating from Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi with a countrywide racket where fake selection camps were held to con young players aspiring to play for IPL teams.
Police sources said here that the three bookies — RS Dhindwal, Shubham Jain and Priyank Saxena — were active in Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Chandigarh and were linked to the brains behind the fake selection camps.
Police had arrested Amritsar-based Aditya Bhandari, who ran the Arnav Cricket Academy, for allegedly organising selection camps, claiming to represent Kings XI Punjab. Bhandari illegally used the logos of KXIP and was holding these camps in western India. One of these camps was being held at Mumbai’s Oval Maidan when the law caught up with the brains behind the racket. Bhandari’s associates Harvinder Singh, Ravindra Gupta and Satendra Singh were picked up from the ground. Investigators from the Board of Control for Cricket in India have been provided with incriminating information against several young cricketers who may have been linked to these bookies in last summer’s IPL season.
Interrogation of the arrested persons has resulted in the unearthing of several residential and commercial properties owned by the bookies and their associates in Mumbai, Pune and other parts of Maharashtra, police said.
Incidentally, the name of bookie Shubham Jain figured in the match-fixing controversy involving Kerala-based cricketer S Sreesanth.