Mumbai cops confirm threat to Lalit Modi

MUMBAI: The Mumbai Police has confirmed that controversial Indian Premier League (IPL) chief Lalit Modi has indeed received a threat from underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's principal aide Chhota Shakeel. Modi stayed away from BCCI's disciplinary committee's meeting on Friday, with his lawyer citing the threat.
The threat, it is learnt, had to do with betting on matches in the third edition of IPL.TOI, in its edition dated April 28, 2010, had reported about the alleged involvement of D-Company in the betting on IPL matches through top Pakistani bookie Numan Miya and his Indian counterparts Rakesh and Rajesh of Jaipur.
The Jaipur bookies, who have since gone underground, are known for their proximity to certain major players of the Indian cricket business, sources said.
The threat from Shakeel, who is based in Karachi, was essentially aimed at silencing Modi who knows too much about the "inside story of IPL matches", said sources.
Incidentally, Shakeel had similarly threatened and silenced Jagdish Joshi, owner of 'Goa gutkha', who had intimate knowledge of the involvement of certain Indian politicians in gutkha smuggling and manufacture in Pakistan.
Joshi had told TOI how he received a call from Shakeel asking him not to give any information to CBI which was probing the multi-crore gutkha scam in which Dawood's brother Anees Ibrahim and nephew Abdul Hamid Antulay were involved.
Modi is likely to be provided with a foolproof security cover, especially when he comes to Mumbai.