Mumbai police seize Sreesanth's phones, laptops, data cards

Mumbai - Probing deeper into the IPL spot-match fixing scam, the Mumbai police have seized the mobiles, iPhones, laptops, data cards and other personal belongings of cricketer S. Sreesanth and his bookie relative Jiju Janardhan.

Besides, the Mumbai police are also scanning the diaries of Sreesanth which contain significant information pertaining to the scam, Joint Police Commissioner (Crime) Himanshu Roy, who is spearheading the investigations, told media persons here.

The police also searched the room in a five-star hotel in south Mumbai where Sreesanth and Janardhan had checked in after making a booking through Tamarind Tours & Travels, he said.

“We are also scanning the CCTV footage of the hotel to find out who they met during their stay there, their movements, and visitors who called on them,” Roy said, adding that the Mumbai police will reconstruct the sequence of events in the hotel May 14/15 till Sreesanth’s arrest by Delhi Police.

In another development, another bookie, Pravin Bera, has been nabbed for his role in the spot fixing scam.

Besides Pravin Bera, Ramesh Vyas, Pankaj Shah alias Lotus, Ashok Vyas, Pandurang Kadam, Niraj Shah have also been arrested so far.

Police had raided bookie Ramesh Vyas’s office in Kalbadevi on May 14.

Investigators picked up a rich haul of 92 mobile phone, 18 SIM cards, account books, laptops, a TV set and a satellite phone, among others.

“Thirty of the mobile phones were used to make conference calls to bookies in India, Pakistan and Dubai by Vyas, who was in touch with all the bookies and had also given some money to them,” Roy said.

“We have several more bookies who are wanted in connection with this connection,” he added, hinting at more arrests.

To a question, Roy said that the police were contemplating slapping the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act on all the accused after complying with the necessary pre-conditions.