E-Paper
Selection of cricketers: 3 young cricketers, district cricket secy booked for furnishing false documents
Police officials say it may be the tip of the iceberg where overaged players gained entry into the Punjab and Mansa cricket teams after allegedly preparing false Aadhar registration details and lack of verification of documents.
A police investigation has unearthed an alleged racket of selecting cricketers with fabricated official documents after three players and the secretary of the Mansa Cricket Association (MCA) were booked for forgery and cheating.
Police officials say it may be the tip of the iceberg where overaged players gained entry into the Punjab and Mansa cricket teams after allegedly preparing false Aadhar registration details and lack of verification of documents.
Investigators found that the three players repeated class 10 examinations to falsify their age to play under-19 squads.
Mansa senior superintendent of police (SSP) Nanak Singh said on Thursday that a case has been registered at Mansa-2 police station against players- Saksham Kumar, Jaspreet Singh, Randeep Singh and the MCA secretary Jagmohan Singh under Sections 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery) 471 (forged documents or electronic records as genuine) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy).
“Case was registered after the DSP (investigations) Lovepreet Singh found clinching document-based evidence. Our team is undertaking further probe as more players, officials of the cricket body and other government departments are suspected to be behind the racket,” added the SSP.
Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) president Amarjit Mehta said he would comment after getting details of the matter.
Mansa-based lawyer Aman Kumar Mittal had submitted a complaint to the police on December 30 last year alleging several players above the age of 19 were playing on the basis of forged proof of age.
“I got suspicious when Randeep Singh, a resident of Hanumangarh in Rajasthan, was suddenly dropped from the Punjab team. After some legwork, I managed to get inputs about the irregularities on record and submitted a police complaint. I have written to the Board of Cricket Control of India (BCCI) and the PCA for scrutinising antecedents of players engaged by the sports body,” said Mittal.
He said the police authorities should intervene to expand a probe in other districts as players got fabricated documents prepared from the government departments and got school admissions by abusing the system.
According to the findings of the DSP Lovepreet Singh, Saksham and Jaspreet manipulated their date of birth (DoB) in the Aadhar cards.
Police probe hinted at a large conspiracy after the secretary of Mansa cricket association Jagmohan Singh told the police that record of 70 players were lost from official custody.
“During the investigation on January 13, Jagmohan stated that all records of the cricketers were present in the office. Four days later he registered a complaint claiming the records went missing. Also, it was found the documents of three (accused) players were not verified by the education boards and principals and it showed his connivance in the entire racket,” stated the report.
The accused
Jagmohan is the secretary since 2010 and he was appointed a government school teacher in 2006. Saksham was born in April 1997 and did his class 10 in 2012. “But he converted his DoB to September 2003 in Aadhar and enrolled as a matric student from the Punjab Open School board. After proving himself six year younger, he played five matches as PCA player to earn ₹ 3.33 lakh,” reads the report.
A resident of Mansa, Jaspreet changed his DoB from December 1999 to 2005. He actually completed matric in 2017 but did it again in 2020 to manipulate his age proof and played in under-19 team in 2021-22.
“In his police statement, Jaspreet said he got his birth certificate made from Mansa sub-divisional magistrate office by using manipulated Aadhar registration. He claimed to have lost his original Aadhar card, birth certificate and detailed marks certificate of class 10 but the complaint was lodged,” further reads the report.
Police found that Randeep was born in April 2001 and completed class 10 in 2016. But he changed his date of birth to December 2003 and he did matriculation again in 2019 from his home district Hanumangarh by using fabricated age-proof documents.
