Cops suspect the woman who was in Kerala cricketer's car when he was nabbed had gone to his hotel room a few days earlier to deliver payment
Turns out the Marathi actress spotted with now-ousted Rajasthan Royals cricketer S Sreesanth at the time of his arrest by Delhi police may have been doing more than adding a touch of razzle-dazzle to the proceedings. According to sources, the starlet was acting as a courier - collecting money from bookies and delivering it to the medium pacer.
Sources also informed that the actress, who was seen at the cricketer's hotel room in the western suburbs a couple of days before the police action, would collect money on his behalf during his absence in Mumbai.
Sources say that she may have gone to Sreesanth's room to tender some of the payout. City police officials reportedly recovered Rs 75,000 in cash during the raid conducted at Sreesanth's room in Sofitel Hotel on Friday night.
`Though we don't have substantial evidence against her yet, she is indeed under surveillance,` added a police source.
Both Sreesanth and the Marathi actress - who has done several television soaps and also acted in Bollywood films - partied at the Original Gourmet (Or-G) pub in Bandra after which Sreesanth walked into Royalty, the club, for some socialising. Cops have also established that the cricketer and his friends spent thousands of rupees in that one night before getting arrested.
Meanwhile, in CCTV footage retrieved from Sofitel Hotel in BKC, Crime Branch has spotted two other models and a casting director entering the rooms booked by Sreesanth. `The girls entered around 6 am a day before the bowler was arrested, and they were seen emerging from the room around 10 pm.
Based on the videos, Crime Branch sleuths traced the casting director who mediated between Sreesanth and the models, and he was interrogated.
`He (the casting director) revealed that he had referred the girls to Sreesanth for endorsement campaigns of a t-shirt company named S36 Enterprises, which is owned by Sreesanth and a Hyderabad-based filmmaker,` a Crime Branch official said on the condition of anonymity.
During Friday night's raid, cops had found Sreesanth's laptop and iPad in his room. The laptop had photos of several models. According to cops, so far they have not come across any concrete leads towards establishing that the casting director was supplying models to Sreesanth.
During questioning, the director in fact told investigators that he had never let the girls interact with Sreesanth directly, as this would have impeded his chances of getting a cut from the endorsement deal.
Meanwhile, taking the first step towards ending their lack of coordination ('Delhi police vs Mumbai Crime Branch may help fixers', May 20, MiD DAY), a team of Delhi police's Special Squad on Monday met Mumbai's joint commissioner of police, Crime Branch, Himanshu Roy, asking him to share information in the spot-fixing case. Cops here yesterday produced arrested bookies Ramesh Vyas (52), Pandurang Kadam (41) and Ashok Vyas (41) in a court that remanded them to police custody till May 22.
Cracking the bookie code - Crime Branch is now searching for bookies code-named P Jaipur, Bunty Jaipur, Lokesh Delhi, Master Jaipur, Kothari, Bablu, Ketan, K P Badri, Vickey, A A, Shoban, Paresh, Lotus, Rakesh Jaipur, Sanjay Jaipur, Nokka Jaipur, Tinku Delhi, Jatin Gujarat, Lambu Gujarat, Kishore Pune and Shrimurthi.
Rs 75K - The amount reportedly recovered from Sreesanth's hotel room during the raid by Crime Branch
