Chandila was promised Rs.30 lakh for predicting IPL result: Police

New Delhi : Tainted Rajasthan Royals player Ajit Chandila was promised Rs.30 lakh to predict the result of an IPL match, a bookie arrested by Delhi Police said Tuesday.

However, despite Chandila predicting the winner correctly, he got only Rs.2 lakh.

Bhupendra Singh Nagar, who was arrested from Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh in a late evening raid Monday, made the revelations in police custody Tuesday. Two more bookies — Syed Ahmed and Sunil Saxena from Hyderabad — were also arrested.

According to police, Nagar is a security manager at Junyxx Club in Eros Hotel in south Delhi’s Nehru Place area. Chandila frequented the club, giving Nagar the chance to build a rapport with him.

Nagar, who is also employed as a security manager at another Delhi hotel, came to know about how Chandila was involved in spot fixing in the Indian Premier League (IPL) matches.

He was approached by his friend Vicky, a bouncer in a nightclub of a prominent hotel in New Delhi, who requested him to arrange a meeting with Chandila as he wanted to meet some cricketers.

In the first week of May, Vicky and his two bookie friends met with Nagar outside Billionaire Hotel in south Delhi’s Vasant Kunj area.

Later, Nagar took Vicky and the two other bookies, who are absconding, to Jaipur where they met Chandila in the second week of May.

“They asked Chandila about the result of the match between KKR (Kolkata Knigh Riders) and RCB (Royal Challengers Bangalore) that took place on May 12 in Bihar’s Ranchi and Chandila predicted KKR’s win,” said a police official.

He was promised Rs.30 lakh if KKR won and was given an advance of Rs.2 lakh.

KKR indeed won the match but as it was a low-scoring match and KKR failed to get a good start, the bookies lost a lot of money in the initial sessions. As a result, the bookies later refused to pay the full amount.

After a hectic negotiations, the bookies relented and gave Rs.5 lakh more to Vicky for paying Chandila.

“Instead of paying Chandila, Vicky and Nagar pocketed the money. Vicky kept Rs.2.85 lakh while Nagar kept the rest,” the official said.

“This sequence matched with our interrogation of Chandila and Nagar. We also have telephone interception to this effect,” he said.

However, Delhi Police said they have no evidence to corroborate the claims of Chandila and others made during questioning in the IPL spot fixing scandal or to come to a conclusion that the match was fixed.

Meanwhile, Abhishek Shukla, a friend of Sreesanth who allegedly cleaned up the cricketer’s hotel room soon after his arrest, was questioned by police.

“He is an event manager. We are questioning him. We want to know how Sreesanth spent the money. Shukla’s PAN number was given for Sreesanth’s transactions. He knows Sreesanth for five to six years,” the official said.

Delhi Police have arrested 22 people in the IPL scandal case in which 17 have been sent to judicial custody, including Rajasthan Royals players S. Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila, Ankeet Chavan.