Sanjeev Chawla (in mask) in Delhi, after his extradition from UK (ANI)

NEW DELHI: Twenty-five years ago, Sanjeev Chawla sold garments in south-east Delhi’s Jangpura market. It took just a few chance meetings with some punters placing and accepting bets on cricket matches for Chawla to change tracks.

For the son of a cloth seller, Chawla’s fortunes witnessed a meteoric rise in the betting business and he began to visit foreign countries with other bookies on business trips. It did not take him long to be introduced to cricketers at parties. A smooth talker, Chawla soon struck up friendships with the who’s who of cricket at the time. By 1998-1999, he was busy changing the outcomes of major cricket tournaments, including the famous 1999 series in Sharjah, investigators claim.

Chawla’s father was a small-time garments businessman and owned a shop in Bhogal market. Later, he and his brother had taken over the business and expanded it, after which the family shifted from their house in Jangpura to a three-storey bungalow in Noida in the 1990s.

A known face at business gatherings in five-star hotels in south Delhi, Chawla was allegedly introduced to the bigwigs of the match-fixing syndicate by an old friend who owned a well-known cassette company at the time. After a few meetings, Chawla started calling the shots in the betting syndicates based in India. He was soon termed the “god” of cricket betting in India, the police claimed.

A few years into the syndicate and Chawla had bought a house in Greater Kailash-II and rented a sprawling bungalow in London. His wife started a designer clothes brand based out of London. He kept travelling back and forth between UK and India between 1996 and 2000 until his passport was cancelled by the Indian government after he was found to be allegedly involved in match-fixing. However, the UK authorities gave him permission to remain in London till 2003 and, in 2005, he was granted UK citizenship.

Chawla took up a property at Kennington, southeast London, and moved with wife and children into a £1 million rented six-bedroom property in Temple Fortune.

Investigators add that in one of the after-match parties, Chawla was introduced to Rajesh Kalra, the other accused charged by the Delhi Police in the case. After his arrest in 2000, Kalra has been out of the public’s gaze, except for a big incident in 2014 when a criminal gang from south Delhi intercepted a vehicle moving around Rs 14 crore of cash, allegedly Kalra’s, and stole the money. The police recovered most of the money and Kalra has been under the income tax scanner since then.

Kalra had told the cops during interrogation that he had parted ways with Chawla in late 2000 after the ODI match between India and South Africa did not go according to plan, leading to discord between the two.

However, he alleged that Chawla controlled the Indian syndicate from London. Despite Interpol having issued a red corner notice against Chawla on the request of the CBI way back in 2001, he was only arrested in 2016 in London after repeated requests from the Indian government. In between, Scotland Yard had only questioned him about his alleged involvement in a match-fixing deal involving England players.

