Bookies flew to Windies, why?

ISLAMABAD: With Jamaican police characterising Bob Woolmer’s death as suspicious, several Pakistani bookies who have gone to the West Indies for the World Cup are likely to come under investigators’ scrutiny. The bookies have been involved in match-fixing in the past.

According to cricket circles in Pakistan, the most prominent member of the group is Khwaja Arif Pappu from Lahore, considered to be Pakistan’s gambling kingpin. He is said to have connections with gangster Dawood Ibrahim. He is also believed to be close to Tariq Aziz, President Pervez Musharraf’s aide.

Pappu, also a well-known socialite, was an income-tax officer when Aziz served in the country’s Central Board of Revenue. He was later dismissed for corruption.

The stint in the income-tax department, however, had allowed Pappu to cultivate Pakistan’s rich and mighty as well as members of the underworld. After his dismissal, he became a fixer and provider for the political and military elite of Punjab. When Dawood Ibrahim moved to Pakistan, he came into contact with Pappu. By then Pappu was a major underworld player.

Pappu can be seen at the Lahore Race Club every Sunday with Aziz, who also happens to be chairman of the club.  Pappu is allegedly involved in match-fixing whenever a cricket event involving India or Pakistan is held in any part of the world.

His name was officially mentioned by the Accountability Bureau set up by the Nawaz Sharif government in 1998-99. The bureau had submitted a report to the Justice Qayyum Commission, which was probing the match-fixing charges against members of the Pakistani cricket team.

The bureau compiled a list of bookies and made public their names. These included Pappu, Haneef Caddie, Zafar alias Jo Jo, Saleem alias Koki, Chaudhry Khalid, and Mian Koko.

Sources in Lahore said at least five of those mentioned by the bureau went to the West Indies in the first week of March.

According to a senior official at the Lahore Race Club, Pappu was a gambling pioneer on the cricket field, making his entry in the 1990s. But cricket is seasonal and he needed a constant source of revenue. So he became a racing bookie and began delving into the Lahore Race Club crowd. He soon became the city’s gambling kingpin by using his horse-racing connections internationally.

But Lahore is a small place and he wanted to expand his sway. His interaction with Dawood broadened his vision and he began exhibiting South African horse races on closed-circuit TV for betting.