Former Indian Premier League (IPL) commissioner Lalit Modi claims that after receiving threats from fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, he was compelled to resign from his position as cricket administrator in India.
The 62-year-old claimed that his son had been abducted in London and that three "hits" had been ordered on him.
“It is one of the biggest reasons. He (Dawood) took three hits at me. Dawood himself said this. He missed three times. The reason was that I didn’t look the other way when they wanted to fix matches. They offered me hundreds of millions of dollars to look the other way. If you look at the first three years, when I ran the IPL, there was no fixing. It wasn’t liked by the mafia,” Modi told ANI.
Criminal syndicates lost money when the IPL was successfully moved to South Africa in 2009, according to Modi, who said he was targeted because he refused to allow match-fixing and betting interests to influence the competition.
The remarks are made years after he, as league commissioner, oversaw the 2009 Indian Premier League's relocation to South Africa because of security concerns during the general elections.
“But the main reason is that they believed that I would not be able to do IPL 2 (IPL 2009). Big bets were taken that IPL 2 would not happen… Bombay police recorded everything. Bombay police put me on Z security… There was a shootout outside my house in Bombay. There was a hit for me in Johannesburg when I was in Cape Town, which was picked up by the South African government,” he added.
Modi went on to say that in 2012, at around 3.30 in the morning, a London-based person connected to IPL circles called him and urged him to see someone known only as "Baba."
“There was a hit on me in Montenegro, which was picked up at the Croatian border. My son was kidnapped in London. I have not told this story to anybody. I get a call at 3.30 in the morning from a man you see around all the IPL matches. He’s around politicians. He’s a London-based guy… He’s a fixer-dealer type of guy. He says you have to come and meet this guy Baba right now. I go to Baba’s penthouse with back-to-back paintings of (MF) Hussain. He told me he wants an IPL team. I told him I have a Dawood problem. He said let me fix it in a minute. It was all orchestrated by them,” he said.
According to Modi, he consented to the meeting in which "Baba" allegedly used a satellite phone to speak with Dawood Ibrahim.
“He goes on his terrace, takes out his satellite phone, and calls Dawood on the phone. I pissed in my pants. This happened in 2012. I don’t know where Dawood was when I spoke to him on the phone. It’s a recorded statement of mine. Dawood said (in an interview), we have resolved issues with Lalit Modi. I didn’t. I just said that I will retire from cricket. I gave my word…” Modi added.
Modi further said that “Baba” was a friend of his and was seen everywhere around the globe.
“Then this Baba was seen everywhere. He’s a man of the world. I’m having dinner one day with Shaukat Aziz, Prime Minister of Pakistan… An India-Pakistan match was taking place at the World Series in Birmingham… He is a good friend of mine…” Modi added.
BCCI had suspended Lalit Modi in 2010 over alleged financial and procedural irregularities and later handed him a lifetime ban from cricket administration. Modi has denied all the allegations and maintained that all actions against him were politically motivated.
(ANI inputs)
