Indian Cricket Faces Meltdown As Fixing Fire Engulfs Administrators, Owners, Umpires, Players
Cops land at BCCI chief’s family’s doorstep
Srinivasan’s Son-In-Law Gets Summons, Seeks Time
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Chennai/Mumbai:
The Indian Premier League fixing scandal has reached the doorstep of
Indian cricket’s powerful boss and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) owner N
Srinivasan’s family— quite literally. A day after The Times of India broke the story about the police investigating Srinivasan’s son-in-law and CSK CEO
Gurunath Meiyappan’s phone conversations with Dara Singh’s son Vindu
for possible links with a betting syndicate, a five-member crime branch
(CB) team from Mumbai arrived in Chennai on Thursday morning to serve
summons on Meiyappan. They first went to the headquarters of
Srinivasan-controlled India Cements, and on finding no one there, stuck a
copy of the summons on the door before going to Meiyappan’s home around 2pm to instruct him to present himself before the CB between 11am and 5pm within 24 hours. But
with no member of the family available to meet the team, they were
initially not let in by the guard; after several phone calls, they were
allowed into the compound. Rama Subbu, the chief security officer of
India Cements, arrived soon thereafter and was seen signing
a paper which the officers handed him. Strangely though, on his way
out, he denied having received any summons on behalf of Meiyappan. Later
in the evening, the crime branch is reported to have received a
one-page fax from Meiyappan saying he was out of town and wanted time
till Monday, with the assurance that he would appear in person. A top
police officer told
TOI on Thursday night that no decision had been taken on whether to
allow him the extra time. If the police were to reject such a request,
which seems unlikely, Meiyappan could be arrested. To avoid such a
situation, he could move the courts on Friday seeking anticipatory bail.
“This may give him a few days, but eventually he will have to appear,”
an officer said. The
whereabouts of the 35-year-old continued to be shrouded in mystery with
speculation placing him variously in Kodaikanal (where he has a holiday
home), Kolkata (where CSK plays the IPL final on Sunday against the
winners of the Mumbai Indians vs Rajasthan Royals match) and New Delhi
(to prepare his legal defence with top-flight lawyers). Will Srinivasan use clout to counter charges? Nor
is there any word as to where the BCCI chief might be although New
Delhi was abuzz with rumours that he would leverage his considerable
clout to counter what his supporters consider a “politically-motivated
conspiracy to discredit him”. On May 16, the day Sreesanth and
his two Rajasthan Royals were arrested, Srinivasan had said, “One or two
bad eggs cannot sully the game,” before stating, on further
questioning, “I hope nobody else is involved, but if information comes
to BCCI, we will act immediately.”
Crime
branch officers from Mumbai served summons on Gurunath Meiyappan, team
principal of Chennai Super Kings, at his Chennai home on Thursday. His
whereabouts have remained a mystery since Wednesday
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