Former Pakistan Test off-spinner and current umpire Akram Raza has been arrested after police conducted a raid to bust a gang of bookmakers taking illegal bets on the ongoing Indian Premier League matches.
"We arrested seven men from a plaza in Liberty area in Gulberg today and one of them has been identified as Akram Raza a former Pakistan player," a senior police officer at the Gulberg police station said.
He said the police had got a tip off that a gang of known bookmakers was running a book on the IPL in the liberty area and conducted the raid.
"We recovered cash, mobile phones and many telephone numbers in India," he said.
He said the arrested persons, including Raza, had been lodged at the Gulberg station but not charged yet.
"We are investigating them to find out their modus operandi and connections," he said.
Raza, 46, who played 9 Tests and 49 ODIs for Pakistan is presently on the PCB's panel of Umpires and has supervised top matches.
He was also named in the match-fixing scandal that first broke out in Pakistan cricket 16 years back and was later fined by the Justice Malik Qayyum inquiry commission into match-fixing in 2000.
Raza is a close friend of former Pakistan captain, Salim Malik who was banned for life by the same commission for match-fixing.
