Police arrests cricket bookies in Vijayawada

VIJAYAWADA: City police arrested five main bookies and three sub-bookies who were organising cricket betting under the police station limits of Ajit Singh Nagar, Krishna Lanka and Satyanarayanapuram on Wednesday and seized four communication boxes, five laptops, 36 mobile phones and cash of Rs 36,000  from them. The arrested have been organising betting on league match being played in Australia.

Commissioner of police D. Gowtam Sawang produced the arrested before the media at his office. A group of bookies were arrested in a house at Lotus Landmark under the police station limits of Ajit Singh Nagar. Main bookies Datla Srinivasa Raju alias Chakravarti of Satyanarayanapuram, V. Chinababu alias Chinna and Vadlamanu Dharmendra alias Bunny of Hyderabad, Gutta Srinivasa Rao alias Bommaluru Srinivasa Rao of Gudivada were arrested.

Sub-bookies Vengala Sivarama Krishna of Mangalagiri and Valisetti Ganesh of Machilipatnam were also arrested at Lotus Landmark. In another raid conducted by the cops, the main bookie Nekkalapu Sivaramakrishna and sub-bookie Mandati Srinivasa Rao of Guntur were arrested when they were organising betting at Fakeeru gudem under the Krishna Lanka police station limits.

The commissioner told reporters that the police are 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 have been absconding for some weeks.  Main bookies and sub-bookies are using communicator boxes, mobile phones for betting. Collection boys collect the money. He has warned suspect and the rowdy sheet would be opened and if necessary PD act would be invoked on the bookies for organising Cricket bettings.