Six held for betting during T20 League final

The police arrested six bookies in two raids at Govandi and Ghatkopar and seized eight mobile phones and Rs4.72 lakh cash from them late on Sunday.

The police arrested six bookies in two raids at Govandi and Ghatkopar and seized eight mobile phones and Rs4.72 lakh cash from them late on Sunday.

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The Deonar police are investigating whether these bookies have any links with those arrested by the crime branch in the cricket spot-fixing case.

“It is too early to jump to conclusions. Investigations are on,” said Lakhmi Gautam, deputy commissioner of police, zone 6.

The raids were carried out after the Deonar police received information that the bookies were accepting bets on the final between Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians, said Prahlad Panaskar, senior police inspector. “The four arrested bookies told us about two other bookies who operated from a Ghatkopar videogame parlour, and we arrested them too.”

The accused include Iqbal Ansari, 33, Mehboob Ansari, 32, Shafiq Shaikh, 32, and Ganesh Bhosale, 40, from Govandi and Rashid Kalmadi, 23, and Jeevan Poojari, 24, from a videogame parlour at Ghatkopar.

“The accused have named one more person in the city, and we are investigating to see if more people are involved,” Panaskar said.