Police hint at evidence against Dalmiya

A team from the Mumbai Police hinted at having gathered evidence against former Board of Control for Cricket in India president Jagmohan Dalmiya and two former Board officials after another round of grilling of the trio in Kolkata on Wednesday in connection with the alleged misappropriation of Rs 21.74 lakh from the 1996 cricket World Cup account.

"The investigation is going in the right direction," Sudhir Mahadik, who is heading the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) team from the Mumbai Police, said after interrogating Dalmiya and former BCCI treasurers Kishore Rungta and Jyoti Bajpai for around two hours.

To a specific query whether they had found any evidence against the former Board officials, he said, "We are getting them. But we cannot disclose details now."

The initial round of interrogations were conducted at the West Bengal Police CID headquarters, after which the Mumbai Police headed for the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) headquarters, located at the Eden Gardens, to continue their investigation.

The EOW team was joined during the day by two more officials from Mumbai. The interrogation would continue till Thursday.

The EOW team earlier rejected a request from Dalmiya's lawyer, Tamal Mukherjee, to be present during interrogation.

The interrogation of the former BCCI officials was being conducted as per a directive of the Mumbai high court.

The court had granted interim relief against arrest to Dalmiya and others after they moved court following an FIR filed by BCCI against them with the Mumbai Police for alleged misappropriation of funds amounting to Rs 21.74 lakh from the account of PILCOM (Pakistan, India, Lanka committee), the organising committee of the 1996 World Cup cricket.

Dalmiya and others were earlier interrogated in four sessions at Mumbai late last month.

The court had directed the three to appear before the EOW in Mumbai for four days and subsequently for two days in Kolkata.

The current regime in the BCCI, headed by Sharad Pawar, had filed an FIR at the Marine Drive police station, but later the case was transferred to the EOW as it was related to alleged economic fraud.

The case was filed under sections 406 and 408 (misappropriation), section 420 (cheating), sections 465 and 467 (falsifying documents) and section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.