New Delhi: Fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim, his aide Chhota Shakeel and three Rajasthan Royal cricketers figure in the charge sheet filed by police yesterday in a Delhi court over the Indian Premier League (IPL) spot-fixing case. Dawood was identified as the kingpin of the racket.
The formal set of charges, running into 6,000 pages, was filed before Additional Sessions Judge Vinay Kumar Khanna.
The charge sheet named cricketers S. Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan among the 39 accused in the scandal related to IPL-6 held earlier this year.
The charge sheet said that as per a Central Forensic Science Laboratory report on phone call intercepts, one of the voices has been identified as that of Dawood and a witness has identified the don’s voice and phone number.
The CFSL report related to phone calls made by cricketers and bookies with alleged links with the underworld, it said.
The forensic report indicated the cricketers and bookies were also speaking to Dawood’s associate Javed Chutani and a person identified as Salman, now in Pakistan.
The court fixed the next hearing on the matter today before the judge concerned for consideration of the charge sheet.
The accused have been charged with offences of cheating and conspiracy under sections of the Indian Penal Code and provisions of the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).
Police slapped provisions of the MCOCA against the accused saying they were acting under orders from Dawood and Chhota Shakeel.
Rajasthan Royals captain Rahul Dravid, players Harmeet Singh and Siddharth Trivedi have been named among 168 witnesses in the case.
Besides Dawood, Shakeel and the three players, the other accused include bookies Ashwani Agarwal, Ramesh Vyas, Deepak Kumar, Sunil Bhatia, Firoz Farid Ansari, Javed Chutani and ex-Ranji player Baburao Yadav.
Sreesanth, Chandila and Chavan were arrested in May on the basis of phone conversations and footage of IPL matches in which they were caught giving predetermined signals to bookies.
Till now, 29 people have been arrested in the case. Twenty-one of them are on bail while eight are in judicial custody. Ten accused are absconding.
IANS
