Delhi:
The three arrested Rajasthan Royals players were willingly participating in spot-fixing, but some taped phone conversations have revealed that they were, at times, threatened by the bookies, sources in the Delhi Police have told NDTV.
Revealing details of the case, police sources said that the players, S Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan, were paid in cash as well as kind.
The three cricketers were spending the money received by bookies on gadgets, electronic items and parties. Chandila had bought a pair of jeans and a watch worth Rs 2.5 lakh by the money paid to him by Amit Singh - a former Rajasthan Royals player who acted as a middleman between the cricketers and the bookies, sources said.
Interestingly, in one of the taped conversations, Chandila is heard telling his wife that a person will be coming home to drop off some money. His wife reportedly asked him how he got so much money.
Bookie Jiju Janardhan, who was dealing with other bookies on behalf of Sreesanth, was paid Rs 10 lakh for the cricketer; Ankeet Chavan was paid an advance too, of which he spent some money. Chandila, meanwhile, was given an expensive watch, sources said.
The police are now looking for CCTV footage from shops where these gifts were bought. Once they get that footage, it will be considered evidence as well.
Sources said they had information that the bookies wanted to involve other players in spot-fixing as well. They had asked Chandila to call team-mates Brad Hogg, Kevon Cooper and Siddharth Trivedi to parties, but these cricketers did not go.
Earlier, sources in the Delhi Police had said that Sreesanth and Ankeet Chavan, his Royals teammate who was also arrested, had been offered Rs. 40 lakh and Rs. 60 lakh respectively.
Teams of Delhi Police's special cell have already been sent to Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, and Kolkata to conduct searches and track the money trail in the IPL spot-fixing case. One of them visited Chandila's house in Faridabad for interrogation. Sources say that some of the alleged bookies who are in Delhi Police's custody were taken along to help the cops gather evidence.