New Delhi : From Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s erstwhile assembly constituency Maninagar in Gujarat — this man Kiran Mala and his betting buddy Tommy Patel, a BJP councillor from Unjha municipality, have been allegedly implicated in a cricket betting racket that is estimated to be over Rs. 4000 crores by officials of the Enforcement Directorate.
But Kiran, Patel and the 12 other accused got bail within days of being arrested on the day India played its controversial quarter final World Cup match against Bangladesh.
Additional Senior Civil Judge D A Patel of Vadodara court released them when they were produced at his house as courts do not function on Sundays. The Congress has cried foul.
‘‘This is the kind of law and order we have in Gujarat that is called the model state. Notorious kingpins in betting and hawala rackets get bail within days and the government has enacted a terror law that is simply just a licence to arrest anyone for 180 days without question. The law has been passed by the assembly again, although it has been rejected by president in the past,” said party spokesperson Ami Yagnik at a media briefing in the capital.
Conceding that Gujarat does have a long coastal line and there have been instances of terrorism in the past, Yagnik questioned the rationale for such a law, particularly since the BJP has always boasted that they have taken care of it.
“Now why do you suddenly want to push a particular law, when penal laws are enough: There are other laws also, why can’t you implement those laws and you have been making tall claims that everything is well in Gujarat,” she added.
With reference to the betting case, Yagnik charged that such a racket with links to London and Dubai has been flourishing only because of its linkages to the corrupt policemen and influential politicians. ‘‘But instead of taking action against those involved, the authorities have transferred the official of the Enforcement Directorate who conducted the raid that yielded this information about links with international betting networks like www.betfair.com, “she added.
The figure of Rs.4000 crore has emerged as each match had a betting volume of Rs.20 crore, and the investigations have revealed that they had covered up to 200 matches. During the course of the raids at different places, the ED recovered 5 laptops, 100 cell-phones and some other electronic devices, documents related to the betting network, and 40 revolver cartridges along with lakhs of rupees in cash.
Both the main figures — Mala and Patel — have a past history of being involved in similar scams. According to officials they were in real-time contact with bookies in Pakistan and Dubai. For a single match they took bets of Rs 10 crore from Pakistan- and Dubai-based bookies, and another Rs 10 crore bets from Indian bookies. They also used mobile phones, Skype as well as betfair.com (an online betting exchange) for their activities.
Demanding a CBI probe into the racket, Yagnik felt that in the hands of the Gujarat police the accused would not be punished and nor would the details of this network be investigated. “The raid itself was conducted by the ED after the local police failed to act, and under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, ED can’t keep them in custody for interrogation until police register an FIR, only then can the ED probe their links to underworld,” she added.
