Bowled & caught: Ex-IPL net player held as cricket scam arrests rise to 6

GURUGRAM: Two persons, including a former net bowler with an Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket team, were arrested by the economic offences wing (EOW) on Thursday for allegedly cheating several young cricketers by promising them a spot in state teams and at net sessions of the domestic T20 cricket league through their “connections”.
Mirza Danish Anand (29), who has also played at the under-19 cricket for West Bengal, and Anurag Kumar (30), a yoga instructor in Haridwar, were arrested as a part of a month-long probe into the cricket scam, police said.So far, six persons, including an Uttarakhand cricket academy owner, have been arrested in the case. More than 14 aspiring cricketers, police said, have been cheated of at least Rs 1.3 crore by the accused.
“Anand and Anurag were arrested after police found a trail of financial transactions in their accounts,” sub-inspector Umesh Chand, who is the investigating officer from EOW, said. Mirza Danish and Anurag, both originally from Uttar Pradesh, had played together at the club level in Delhi and were in touch since then. Kumar, police said, had played cricket at the district level for Delhi and Rajasthan too. The two men, according to investigators, were also in touch with the other accused arrested in the case.
The scam had come to light on August 24 after Anshul Raj, resident of New Palam Vihar, filed a complaint at Sector 50 police station, alleging that Secure Corporate Management (SCM), which claimed to be working with several cricket bodies, had cheated him of Rs 10 lakh by assuring him of selection in the state cricket team.
The case was transferred to the EOW, which on September 4 arrested the directors of SCM -- Ashutosh Bora, Chitra Bora, and Nitin Jha – from a five-star hotel in Gurgaon. During their interrogation, police claimed, names of around 8-9 persons associated with several cricket bodies of Assam, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Bihar and Himachal Pradesh had come up. The EOW had issued notices to all of them asking them to join the investigation.
During the probe, police found that the accused had transferred around Rs 10 lakh to the account of Kulbeer Rawat, who owned a cricket academy in Uttarakhand. Rawat was arrested on September 30.
Meanwhile, Chitra Bora has moved a bail application before the Punjab and Haryana high court on health grounds. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for November 9.