Chennai: The International Cricket Council (ICC) withdrew umpire Asad Rauf from next month’s Champions Trophy cricket tournament after media reports said Mumbai police was investigating his role in a betting scandal even as the police summoned Gurunath Meiyappan , chief executive of the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) team, to Mumbai after a two-member police team failed to meet him at his Chennai residence.

“In the wake of reports that the Mumbai Police are conducting an investigation into Asad Rauf’s activities, we feel that it is in Asad’s best interests as well as those of the sport and the event itself, that he is withdrawn from participating in the ICC Champions Trophy," ICC chief executive David Richardson said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Meiyappan, who is also the son-in-law of the Board of Control for Cricket in India president N. Srinivasan, has been asked to appear before crime branch in Mumbai between 11 am and 5pm on Friday, joint commissioner crime branch Himanshu Roy said. Meiyappan and some other top executives of CSK were in touch with arrested actor Vindu Randhawa, police said.

Randhawa, son of late wrestler-actor Dara Singh Randhawa, was arrested in the IPL betting case on 21 May. His phone call records showed that he had made several calls to Chennai and some of them to Meiyappan, according to police. The 49-year-old actor was arrested for his alleged association with bookies. Randhawa, winner of reality TV show Bigg Boss Season 3, was allegedly in touch with some bookies arrested in the scandal. Widening the investigations, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday registered a money laundering case in the IPL spot-fixing scandal to probe alleged routing of hawala funds and other financial irregularities which emerged after police investigations, people with knowledge of the development said. With the directorate coming into the picture by invoking the criminal clauses of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the noose would tighten against the accused players and bookies as under the said Act the onus of proving one’s innocence is on the accused and there was also the possibility of seizure of assets and bank accounts.

At least three more players and one more IPL team are under the scanner for spot-fixing in the tournament, Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar said in a fresh disclosure. This is in addition to S. Sreesanth, Ankeet Chavan and Ajit Chandila of Rajasthan Royals who have been arrested by the Delhi police for alleged spot-fixing in three different matches. “We are investigating the role of another team and three more players. However, I cannot disclose the names as we are in the process of gathering evidence," Kumar said.

PTI and Reuters contributed to this story.

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