The Raipur roulette

How a boy from Bhilai built a Dubai-based betting syndicate, and why it has spawned a political upheaval in Chhattisgarh

- NAMRATA BIJI AHUJA

On the sultry summer evening of May 3, Rajendra Kumar Bharti parked his vegetable cart at the crowded Bharat Mata Chowk in Raipur's Gudhiyari area. He had finished his stock of onions, tomatoes and potatoes, and was now looking to buy a new sim for his cellphone. He strolled around the chowk, and found that a stall run by two men had an attractive offer. He bought the sim and gave the men-Sanju and Vaibhav Shukla-his Aadhaar and PAN details, photos and thumb impression. Bharti went home feeling accomplished.

"Months passed, and a courier landed on my doorstep with a statement of a bank account in my name," he would later tell policemen. "To my horror, I saw that transactions worth crores of rupees had taken place in the account in two months."

On August 10, based on Bharti's complaint, the police in Raipur registered a first information report under section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code.

A day later, the Khamtarai police station in Raipur district registered a similar case. Arun Jal, a welder, complained that his bank accounts were suspended because of a high number of unusual transactions. He said his wife's employer, one Rajat Agarwal, had opened accounts in their names and kept the ATM cards and passbooks.

Hundreds of kilometres away, in Bakkannapalem village near Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, the police's cyber cell arrested 19 persons for allegedly facilitating dubious transactions through their bank accounts. The villagers had received rations and cash to create bank accounts in their name, and people running illegal betting websites had apparently deposited money collected from punters into these accounts.