New Dehli | Thursday
INDIAN police have arrested 70 bookmakers who fuelled rumours about riots to encourage bets on the chances of sectarian violence in Gujarat state spreading to other areas, the Hindustan Times recently reported.
The bookies living in the north western state of Rajasthan, adjacent to Gujarat, were offering odds of between 4-1 and 6-1 on the unrest crossing the state border.
In order to drum up business, they used their cellphones to spread baseless rumours of clashes, but were caught when the police were tipped off and their calls traced back, the Times said.
”They deliberately spread the rumours to keep the possibility of riots alive, without which they would not have been in business,” said Anand Srivastava, police superintendent in Rajastan’s state capital Jaipur.
The police have recovered a large number of betting slips and two dozen mobile phones.
The sectarian violence in Gujarat killed more than 650 people in India’s worst bout of hindu-muslim blood-letting in nearly a decade.
The clashes were sparked when a muslim mob torched four coaches of a train carrying hindu activists on February 27, killing 58 people. Sapa-AFP