Banana invoice of Rs 35 lakh, ‘death threats’: Uttarakhand cricket below cloud

OVER Rs 1.74 CRORE for meals and catering, together with Rs 35 lakh for bananas; Rs 49.5 lakh in each day allowances; Rs 11 crore spent in the course of the Covid lockdown; non-payment of gamers’ dues; dodgy choice insurance policies. And then, extortion and demise threats.

The Cricket Association of Uttarakhand (CAU) is in the midst of a storm of allegations, starting from monetary impropriety to intimidation of gamers.

So a lot in order that CAU secretary Mahim Verma, the workforce’s head coach Manish Jha and the affiliation spokesperson Sanjay Gusain had been questioned by the Uttarakhand Police after they had been named in an FIR by the daddy of a former India Under-19 cricketer for alleged extortion and demise threats.

“For the past three days, we have called Mahim Verma, Manish Jha and Sanjay Gusain separately. We have interrogated them. We have taken their statements,” Janmejaya Khanduri, SSP Dehradun, advised The Indian Express. “If needed, it will be done again.”

The FIR, registered at Vasant Vihar police station in Dehradun, has been filed below IPC sections for prison conspiracy (120B), voluntarily inflicting harm (323), extortion (384), intentional insult (504) and prison intimidation (506).

The complainant Virendra Sethi, who’s the daddy of former Under-19 participant Arya Sethi, has alleged that his son was given demise threats by Jha, workforce supervisor Navneet Mishra and video analyst Piyush Raghuvanshi in the course of the Vijay Hazare match final yr.

According to information reviewed by The Indian Express and interviews with gamers, that is simply the most recent chapter in Uttarakhand cricket’s troubled innings.

The gamers level to non-payment or under-payment of dues (Rs 100 paid as DA when the mandated quantity is Rs 1,500) and never being supplied meals throughout tournaments and coaching camps — the affiliation’s books record bills totalling a number of lakhs of rupees on gadgets corresponding to bananas and water bottles, even in the course of the pandemic.

The CAU’s audit report of March 31, 2020, has listed Rs 1,74,07,346 for meals and catering and Rs 49,58,750 for each day allowances. This contains Rs 35 lakh for bananas and Rs 22 lakh for water bottles.

Robin Bisht, an outstation skilled for the Uttarakhand workforce, corroborated Sethi’s allegations, and recalled an incident earlier than the latest Ranji Trophy quarterfinal towards Mumbai.

“We returned to the team hotel and, after our recovery session in the pool, went for lunch. The hotel staff said they were told not to serve us food. When we called the team manager, he replied: ‘Order something from Swiggy or Zomato or stay hungry. Ek din khana nahi khaoge toh mar nahi jaoge (If you don’t eat for a day, you won’t die)’,” stated Bisht.

Uttarakhand misplaced the match to Mumbai by 725 runs — a world report victory margin in cricket.

“Next day, we had a flight to Delhi. After exiting the airport, we again called up our team manager to say that we needed to go to Dehradun. ‘Where is our bus?’ The reply came, ‘book a cab, bus or train. Our job was to get you guys to Delhi, not your homes’,” stated Bisht.

Allegations of corruption have additionally been levelled towards CAU by Independent MLA Umesh Kumar within the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly.

“During Covid, CAU distributed Rs 6.5 crore as professional fees. I want to know to whom they paid this money? Before March 2020, the professional fees were around Rs 2.75 crore. During Covid, who had lunch and dinner of Rs 1.27 crore? How did they hire cricketing coaches? I raised this in Uttarakhand Sadan too. I think the BCCI should intervene; there is very big corruption going on here,” Kumar advised The Indian Express.

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“During lockdown when everything was shut, they invested Rs 11 crore, and under full operation, you are investing Rs 12 crore,” Kumar stated.

The gamers, in the meantime, complained of being paid a lot decrease than what the BCCI laws stipulate. “Our official DA is Rs 1,500, we were getting Rs 100 per day. We got Rs 2,700 for 27 days; an unskilled labourer earned more than us,” stated Bisht.

MLA Kumar stated he has introduced the matter to the state authorities’s discover. “Me and 12 other MLAs have written to the Chief Minister, and if need be, we will go to the Supreme Court. The Lodha Committee was appointed by the Supreme Court, and ‘Mr Verma and Company’ are not following the court’s regulations,” Kumar stated.

In his police grievance, Sethi alleged that Verma demanded Rs 10 lakh for together with his son within the state workforce.

These allegations come after former India opener Wasim Jaffer needed to go away his publish as head coach after allegations of “communalising” the dressing room — prices that Jaffer strongly denied.

CAU secretary Mahim Verma and president Jot Singh Gansola additionally face a grievance from their very own affiliation’s vice-president Sanjay Rawat and joint secretary Avnish Verma earlier than the state cricket physique’s Ombudsman and Ethics Officer, alleging monetary irregularities. “We have sent a letter to the BCCI as well. The Ethics officer has told Mahim Verma and Jot Singh Gansola to submit their response by Thursday,” stated Rawat.

Speaking to The Indian Express, a prime BCCI official stated: “Right now, it is a matter related to a state association. In case it is raised at the BCCI’s apex council meeting on July 21, we will look into it.”

Mahim Verma and head coach Manish Jha didn’t reply to calls from The Indian Express in search of touch upon the allegations towards them.