The fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his aide Chhota Shakeel are behind the recent IPL spot-fixing scandal, according to the Delhi police chargesheet that was field in a Delhi court Tuesday. The chargesheet names 39 as accused including Rajasthan Royal's Sreesanth, Ankit Chavan and Ajit Chandila, said the syndicate run by Dawood and his aide has been actively operating from safe havens, with the singular objective of de-stabilising national security, sovereignty and economic stability. It also names Rajasthan Royals captain Rahul Dravid being named as a witness. The charge sheet said Javed Chutani, a Pakistani national, is an inner member of the Dawood syndicate and runs his various activities out of Dubai and the intercepted calls clearly establish that he is a clear player in this fixing syndicate.
Besides, charging all the accused for the offence conspiracy and cheating under IPC, provisions of stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) have been invoked against them for being the part of the syndicate. "A perusal of the confessional statements, coupled with other evidence brought on record in the case leaves no doubt that it is the syndicate of Dawood Ibrahim-Chhota Shakeel which has been controlling the illegal fixing/betting market in India insofar as the sport of cricket is concerned. "It is on record that this syndicate has been over the years actively operating from the safe havens, with singular objective of de-stabilising Indian security, sovereignty and economic stability," the police said in its 6,000-page charge sheet. " Chutani is an inner member of the Dawood syndicate and runs his various activities out of Dubai. The intercepted calls clearly establish that he is a clear player in this fixing syndicate," the charge sheet, which lists 168 persons as witnesses, said. The police in its charge sheet said that the cricketers, including Sreesanth who spent 27 days in Tihar Jail, were in touch with the bookies who at the behest of Dawood were paying and commanding the players to underperform.
It also said that Sreesanth's close aide Jiju Janardhan was in touch with the bookies. The charge sheet said that through the interception of the various phone calls of the accused, "it has been established that cricketer Ajit Chandila was also in touch with many other fixers/bookies and was receiving handsome money in lieu of himself underperforming or making other players underperform, as per the bidding of bookies, an activity, which could be termed as spot/session fixing." The charge sheet says that the probe in this case, has unearthed "sufficient evidence" to prosecute the accused for the offence punishable under section 120B (conspiracy) read with 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating) of IPC and under the provisions the stringent MCOCA. The accused face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment along with fine of Rs 5 lakh under section 3 of MCOCA while the jail term can go up to ten years along with fine of Rs 1 lakh and properties of the accused can also be attached under section 4.
Apart from the three cricketers, the other 36 accused also include bookies Ashwani Agarwal, Ramesh Vyas, Deepak Kumar, Sunil Bhatia and Firoz Farid Ansari and ex-Ranji player Baburao Yadav. Of the 39 accused, 21, including Sreesanth, have been granted bail while eight others are still in judicial custody. The 10 persons who are absconding, as per the charge sheet are Dawood, his aide Chhota Shakeel, their associates Chutani, Salman, Ehteysham, Mohd Amir and bookies Sanjay Aggarwal, Chandresh Jain, Praveen Kumar and Sandeep Sharma. The charge sheet, filed before link Additional Sessions judge Vinay Kumar Khanna, said that as per the Central Forensic Labs report on call intercepts, one of the voices has been identified as that of Dawood and a witness has identified the don's voice and number.
The link court has fixed the matter for tomorrow before the concerned judge who will also hear Delhi police' plea for cancellation of bail granted to Sreesanth, Chavan and 19 others. On June 10, while granting bail to the accused, the court had said there is prima facie "no sufficient material" against the accused to establish their "nexus" with organised crime syndicate. On the role of accused and key bookie Ashwani Aggarwal, who was controling fixing operation in northern India, the charge sheet said, "His connections with underworld running of betting exchange and overall commanding the fixing activity, if taken together, clearly indicate that the activity of fixing a player in lieu of money etc is the basic instrument of making illegal money through the process of fixing/betting, which was the ultimate object of this syndicate.
The probe also confirmed that large scale hawala transactions, both domestic and international, were being conducted by accused Ashwani Aggarwal, it said. Delhi police in its charge sheet has said that in its probe conducted so far, it has been disclosed that "all the acts/omissions on the part of the accused persons were pointing towards hatching various unlawful purposes including, inter-alia, generation of illegal wealth. "This generation of money was found guided and controlled by certain persons sitting abroad who, as per available records, had been earlier also associated with different types of organised crime activities. "By the investigation, the basic three ingredients of the offence of organised crime i.e generation of wealth through unlawful means, committed after forming a syndicate, which is having a past of continuing unlawful activity, were found fulfilled." Police has said in its charge sheet that the process to trace and apprehend the absconding accused persons is being taken up through Interpol red-corner notices. "Further process of issuing letter rogatory in this regard has been initiated and the detail thereof shall be submitted in the supplementary police report," the charge sheet said.
