Fake T20 scandal: Kingpin bookie Dandiwal along with fourth arrested accused on a five-day remand

Fake T20 scandal: Kingpin bookie Dandiwal along with fourth arrested accused on a five-day remand

Harshabab Sidhu
Nabaz-e-Punjab, Mohali, July 11:
The kingpin bookie, Ravinder Dandiwal along with accused, Durgesh, arrested yesterday, was produced in a local court here today by the Mohali police. The court has sent the duo to five-day police custody. The court has extended the remand of Dandiwal, who was already under police custody since his arrest on July 6.
The accused, Durgesh, was arrested by the police from his residence in Aterna village in Sonepat district, Haryana, after conducting the raid. As per the police, Durgesh was also involved in the fake T20 match played in Sawara village here, as he had brought the hi-tech camers from Delhi to cover the match.
Inspector Sukhveer Singh said, “Durgesh is the fourth arrested accused in this case. We will now interrogate him during his remand for getting more details about the case. The two identified suspects, Happy Chandigarh and Kunju, are yet to be arrested.”
The two suspects, Pankaj Kumar Arora and Rajesh Garg, arrested earlier, were already released on bail on Thursday.
Mohali SP (rural), Ravjot Kaur Grewal said, “We have recovered players’ jerseys from the accused, Durgesh. The hi-tech cameras used by him will be recovered soon. We came to know that a total of 22 players were hired by Dandiwal by giving them greed of money. We are in the process to trace all the players for recording their statements.”
The SP also said that a commentator was also hired by Dandiwal, for playing commentary on online streaming platforms. However, no live commentary was performed in the stadium so that the players would not get any clue about the league reality.
During the investigation, it was also disclosed by the cricketers that Dandiwal had promised them to give them a chance in international matches. However, during the two matches played on the same day at Sawara, players neither get any food nor any special treatment following which they had refused to play further, said the SP.
The police have also recovered the stumps having labels of UVA T20 league, used in the game.
The SP also added that the two teams made by the accused (organisers) were given names related to Sri Lanka. Secondly, the jerseys were also having labels of Sri Lankan sponsors on them, which were already recovered by the police.
The report submitted by the two-member team of BCCI also disclosed that along with online applications, the match was also streamed on few websites.
The BCCI had also given classes to the cricketers about the match fixing scandals and the board had been warning them to save themselves from bookies like ‘Dandiwal’.
Dandiwal was on the radar of BCCI for a long time as he had been into large match-fixing scandals.
The police had recovered the banners and the jerseys, used in the match.