Police quiz RR team owner Raj Kundra

Police in New Delhi on Wednesday questioned the owner of an Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket team as part of a widening investigation into fixing in the domestic tournament, a report said.

Investigators summoned Raj Kundra to seek information on three players from his Rajasthan Royals team, who have been arrested over allegations of spot-fixing during the Twenty20 tournament, the Press Trust of India said.

Details of the outcome of the questioning were not immediately known but police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said the chief investigator was likely to brief media later Wednesday.

Test bowler Shanthakumaran Sreesanth and two of his teammates were arrested last month, accused of deliberately bowling badly in specific IPL matches in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars from bookmakers.

A court denied the players bail on Tuesday, after police said they had evidence to prove organised crime syndicates were involved in the scandal.

“We are trying to establish if more people are part of this (spot-fixing) conspiracy,” a senior police officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Delhi’s police commissioner has told AFP that players for some of the eight other IPL teams were also under suspicion.

The developments came a day after a Mumbai court granted bail to the son-in-law of India’s cricket chief and a Bollywood actor who were also arrested last month over an illegal betting scandal.

Gurunath Meiyappan, part of the management of the Chennai Super Kings team, has been accused of placing bets on matches through the actor.

Spot-fixing, in which a specific part of the match but not the outcome is fixed, is illegal. Betting on the IPL is also illegal under India’s laws which ban gambling on all sports except horse-racing.

Meiyappan is the son-in-law of Indian cricket board chief N. Srinivasan who on Sunday stepped aside pending the outcome of an internal probe into allegations of spot-fixing in IPL matches.