Tags:
Journalism of Courage
MOHALI/NEW DELHI, APRIL 22: Inderjit Singh Bindra, former president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), claimed on Saturday that he had been receiving threats over his opposition to the betting and match-fixing scandal.
"Because of my outspokenness, I have been living with threats to my personal being. It was no coincidence then that just before the start of the Delhi press conference called by me on April 19, that I and my wife separately received threats aimed at my children," Bindra said. He alleged the real people behind match-fixing "are a handful of cricket administrators and others with vested commercial interests".
Meanwhile, a Delhi court rejected the bail application of Rajesh Kalra, the first accused arrested in the match-fixing case, saying granting him bail at this tage would hamper the probe on Saturday.
Rejecting the bail application, Metropolitan Magistrate (MM) K S Mohi said the main accused in the case was yet to be arrested and "if the accused (Kalra) is released on bail, investigation will be hampered".
Kalra’s counsel Vineet Malhotra said that his client was being falsely implicated in the case as there was no material evidence with the police to connect him to the allegations which were based on only media reports.
This was contested by government counsel S S Gandhi and Manoj Taneja saying the case was of international significance and that he had an active role in the scandal.
Crime Branch police had arrested Kalra on April 7 as South African cricketer Hansie Cronje had talked to another co-accused London-based businessman Sanjeev Chawala on his mobile telephone number during last month’s series of matches between India and South Africa.
Kalra, a South Delhi businessman, was quoted by a magazine as saying he believed that the series was "fixed at 4,00,000 to 5,00,000 US dollars".
Government counsel argued that the accused persons had a criminal conspiracy to alter the course of the match by use of big money and deceive the public who had purchased tickets.
However, defence counsel said that even as per the FIR, in the alleged conversation between Cronje and Chawla, no role could be attributed to Kalra.
