West Bengal CID Held Four People for Cricket Betting

West Bengal CID has arrested four people from North Bengal district of Jalpaiguri on Sunday, for their alleged involvement in cricket betting racket.

Meanwhile, this has pushed the number of arrests to 16 in this month of April.

Helped by a tip-off, investigators raided a house in Mainaguri and arrested Bhola Das, Pravat Kangsa Banik, Pankaj Saha, and Gopal Sarkar.

CID issues statement:

CID in their statement said that Sarkar, who owns a shop organised the betting racket.

However, it was Das and Banik, who were collection agents and reconciled balance. Subsequently, the statement suggested they also placed bets.

“During the search, some incriminating documents regarding betting, 10 mobile phones, and Rs 3,77,620 were found (sic),” said the statement.

Meanwhile, on April 17, police arrested six people including an engineering student from Jalpaiguri on charges of placing bets. They were betting during an Indian Premier League (IPL) match between Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Mumbai Indians (MI).

In an almost simultaneous but unrelated raid in Kolkata, police arrested three persons Shamiul Akhtar, Inzamul Haque and Asadul Zamal from a rented apartment in the Kasba area in south Kolkata. Akhtar, Haque, and Zamal were residents of Raghunathgunj in Murshidabad district.

On April 14, police arrested Jayanta and Debabrata Biswas, from Gayeshpur in Nadia district. Along with them, police also nabbed Pappu Das from Dumdum cantonment area for their involvement in cricket betting activities.

A sub-divisional police officer admitted that they seized three mobile phones, a tablet and Rs 2,700 in cash.

In the raid on April 22, the officers found two laptops and 11 mobile handsets from the spot.

CID officers have named five websites that the arrested youths were using to carry on cricket betting.

Police later identified those arrested on April 17 in Jalpaiguri town as Kiran Banik (21), a student at Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College, Rajiv Das (20), Raju Sarkar (20), Pritam Dutta (20), Subham Banik (28) and Gourav Das (21).

Also read: India’s five forgotten Indian Premier League Heroes