Hyderabad: The Task Force police busted an inter-state cricket betting racket and apprehended 13 persons from different locations in the city. They also seized Rs 26.48 lakh cash from their possession.
Hyderabad Police Commissioner M Mahender Reddy said that searches were conducted in three places in the city on Tuesday, while a Test match was going on between South Africa and Bangladesh.
Acting on a tip-off, Task Force teams carried out simultaneous raids on gambling dens at Sindhi Colony in Secunderabad, Begum Bazar and Sultan Bazar on Tuesday.
Reddy also said the racket had spread its tentacles over Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan, and was organised by one Satya Prakash Jindal alias Nikku (42). He coordinated a group of sub-bookies to whom he shared the betting line over cell phone, the commissioner said.
Three cases have been registered against the racket in Sultanbazar, Shahinayatgunaj and Ramgopalpet Police Stations.
The seized material includes four line boxes with CDMA cell phones, nine land phones, six laptops, three TV sets and 36 cell phones.
The arrested include three sub-bookies – Govind Rathi (32), G Prashanth Kumar (35) and M Dilip Kumar(48) and two others – Vijay Kumar Goel (31) and Ramesh Kumar Goel (31) – who worked with Rathi.
The other persons are all employees with main accused Jindal and are natives of Haryana Rajasthan and Punjab.