Cricket bookies arrested; cash, mobile phones seized

Vijayawada: The city police arrested five main bookies and three sub-bookies who were organising bettings under the police station limits of Ajit Singh Nagar, Krishnalanka and Satyanarayanapuram on Wednesday and seized four communication boxes, five laptops, 36 mobile phones and cash worth Rs.36,000 from them.

These bookies and sub-bookies are organising betting camps on a league match being played in Australia. Commissioner of Police D Gowtam Sawang produced the arrested bookies before the media at his office on Wednesday.

Briefing the media, Commissioner Gowtam Sawang said that the police were trying to arrest the bookies and sub-bookies belonging to Guntur, Bheemavaram, Tanuku, Ravulapalem, Tirupati, Vizag, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and other places. He said these bookies were absconding for some weeks and they would be arrested.

The Commissioner of Police regretted that many youngsters were falling prey to these betting gangs, losing money and wasting their precious time. He reminded that a B. Tech student Gurram Teju, 20, committed suicide two months ago after he became habituated to cricket betting.

The student could not pay the debts and ended his life when bookies exerted pressure for repayment of cash, the Commissioner lamented. He said that the two accued Trasula Vijay Kumar and M Prasanna Kumar were arrested and sent to judicial remand in connection with the suicide of the student Teju.

Sawang made an appeal to parents to keep a close watch on their children and discourage their children from participating in cricket betting. He has warned suspect and rowdy sheet would be opened and if necessary Preventive Detention Act would be invoked on the bookies for organising Cricket betting..