Dawood was in betting business before 1993 Mumbai blasts: Delhi Police

New Delhi: Years before he became India`s most wanted fugitive in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, underworld don Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar was deeply involved in the cricket betting business and used to control the Mumbai betting market. After he fled to Pakistan, his lieutenants have been running his syndicate, says the Delhi Police charge- sheet in the IPL-6 spot-fixing scandal.

"A close lieutenant of Dawood - Chota Shakeel`s aide Mir Zahid alias Chote Miyan - used to run a club, namely Bharat Social Group from Nagpara, Mumbai from where the rates were fixed before Dawood and Shakeel fled from India in 1993," said the Delhi Police charge- sheet submitted before a court here. The disclosure about Dawood`s betting links was made by arrested accused Feroze Farid Ansari, 37, from Mumbai, June 11, 2013. Ansari was one of the people nabbed during the probe into the IPL spot-fixing. Ansari used to control Dawood`s betting market from Mumbai and was directly in contact with Javed Chutani, a Pakistan-based bookie who has been named in the charge-sheet. Ansari`s arrest followed the interrogation of two prominent bookies, Tinku Mandi and Ramesh Vyas in June. Tinku Mandi controlled the betting syndicates of north India while Vyas handled the south Indian syndicates for Dawood, the 900-page charge-sheet said. A copy of the charge-sheet, obtained by IANS, says that Ansari was the successor to Chote Miyan, who was gunned down in 2009 in an inter-syndicate turf war between the Dawood and Chota Rajan syndicates for control over Mumbai`s multi-billion betting territory. Earlier, Chote Miyan used to control the Mumbai betting market on behalf of the Dawood syndicate and used to begin business only after consulting Dawood Ibrahim and Chota Shakeel, who had by this time settled in Pakistan, the charge-sheet says. After Chote Miyan`s death, Chota Shakeel had called Ansari and told him to look after the entire business being handled by him. Ansari was also told that Dawood and Shakeel would remain in the shadows and would not directly be operating in the market. Ansari was introduced to Javed Chutani, Rehmat, Ehteysham and other Pakistan-based members of the Dawood syndicate. Chutani, Rehmat and Ehteysham are among the 10 identified people named in the charge-sheet as absconding. A total of 29 people, including three Rajasthan Royal players - S. Sreesanth, Ajeet Chandila and Ankit Chavan - were arrested in connection with the IPL spot-fixing scandal. On July 30, the Delhi Police had filed its charge-sheet in a MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act) court in Delhi. IANS