They were arrested for tricking aspiring cricketer into paying Rs 10 lakh, police say
Gurugram Police arrested three people on charges of scamming an aspiring cricketer into paying several lakhs in return for selection to play state-level tournaments, officials said.
Police identified the three suspects as Ashutosh Bora, his sister Chitra Bora, and Nitin Kumar, all of them originally from Uttar Pradesh but currently living in the city. Ashutosh Bora and his sister Chitra were named in an FIR police registered last week after an aspiring cricketer from Uttar Pradesh, Anshul Raj, said they’d tricked him into paying Rs 10 lakh in installments for entry into the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Academy (HPCA).
The three arrested on Saturday pretended to be directors of a sports management company called Secure Corporate Management Private Limited, which had its office at the Spaze IT building at Sohna road.
Police named three others—Raj Rajput, Amit, and Pushkar Tiwari—in their FIR registered last week. All five suspects were booked for fraud, Inspector Bijender Kumar, head of Gurugram’s Economic Offences Wing-2—the unit investigating the case—said.
Anshul Raj said in his complaint that the suspects had deceived him by showing him fake selection letters. The suspects, the complaint said, showed Anshul Raj a forged letter dated January 4, 2019, that said he would be part of Himachal’s under 23 cricket team at the CK Naidu Trophy Tournament. The letter bore the stamp of the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association and had the secretary’s signature, he said in his complaint.
When he said he couldn’t afford to pay Rs 10 lakh, the suspects set out to persuade his father, who wired the money to a certain bank account. He was then asked to come to Himachal, where he was given a cricket kit and clothes bearing the HPCA logo, Anshul Raj’s lawyer said in the complaint.
But he was told he had to sit out of the matches because the team objected to an outsider’s inclusion. Anshul Raj sent the letters and his contract to the HPCA, which denied having sent the letters.
“When the letter and other contracts were sent for scrutiny to the authorities, it was officially clarified that they were forged and that the sports company was not recognised by any state cricket association,” the complaint said.
