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Bindra to be questioned next week

The Central Bureau of Investigation will question former BCCI presisent I S Bindra after scrutinising his 360-page report on match-fixing, betting and other malpractice in Indian cricket.

CBI sources indicated that the investigating team, headed by Joint Director R N Savani, was still scrutinising the papers provided by Bindra. Once that was complete, it would examine him about its queries on various issues raised by the ex-BCCI functionary.

Sources indicated that the process of scrutinising the documents was likely to be completed in a couple of days, and Bindra will be questioned early next week.

According to Bindra, he has already received a questionnaire based on his report and was preparing a written reply for it. CBI sources however did not confirm or deny this, choosing not to comment.

Bindra had on May 15 appeared before the CBI on his own and submitted the 360-page document after a 70-minute meeting with the investigators. In his report, he is understood to have raised issues of the sale of TV rights of cricket matches since 1996, and about matches played in Sharjah, Singapore, Toronto and Dhaka.

The CBI, which was entrusted with the investigation in the last week of April and which began its inquiry on May 2, has thus far questioned four people including former India manager Sunil Dev.

The CBI will shortly call Manoj Prabhakar, the man who started it all, for questioning. The date for Prabhakar's deposition before the agency has not, however, been fixed yet.

Apart from this inquiry, the Delhi police has been continuing its investigations with reference to FIR No. 111/2000, which names South Africa's former captain Hansie Cronje and three of his team-mates, namely Herschelle Gibbs, Nicky Boje and Pieter Strydom, as being involved in illegal activities on the cricket field. The FIR also names Sanjay Chawla, prime accused in the case, and Rajesh Kalra, now in custody, besides music baron Kishen Kumar.

The Betting Scandal: The full story

UNI