Vindoo, Meiyappan in judicial custody till June 14

A Mumbai court Monday granted judicial custody till June 14 to Bollywood actor Vindoo Dara Singh Randhawa, Gurunath Meiyappan and two others in connection with the Indian Premier League (IPL) betting scandal.

Additional Metropolitan Magistrate M.N. Saleem rejected the police plea to extend police custody for the four accused stating that the prosecution had made no grounds for the same after their police remand ended Monday.

Besides Vindoo and Meiyappan, hawala operator Alpesh Patel and bookie Prem Taneja were also sent to judicial custody till June 14.

Public prosecutor Kiran Bendbhar argued that the police required further custody of the accused to help trace out absconding bookies and investigate more about their financial transactions, which was strongly opposed by the defence lawyers.

In a related development, Mumbai police have detained a bookie in connection with the IPL betting scam that continues to rock the cricket world since over a fortnight now.

Kishore Badlani, alias Kishore Pune was intercepted as soon as he landed at Mumbai airport shortly after he arrived from Europe. His name had cropped up during the questioning of other accused in the scandal and police believe Badlani could shed more light on the links between Indian and Pakistani bookies.

Last Saturday, Mumbai police also secured custody of a New Delhi-based bookie Ashwin Agarwal, alias Tinku Delhi, in the same case, till June 6.

Tinku allegedly placed bets using a mobile number registered in the name of one Kothari whom the police are trying to trace.