ICC ACU head Alex Marshall commented that players proactive on social media in lockdown could lead to corrupt approaches. He warned people to tread carefully and be cautious. BCCI Anti-Corruption Unit chief Ajit Singh said is everything is under control. He is not worried about any such threat as Indian players know their responsibilities.
“We have made our players aware of the way people approach you and modus operandi through social media. We have told them ‘look this is how they (potential fixers and bookies) would approach you’,” he said.
“(They will) try and behave like a fan and then try to meet you through someone who may be your acquaintance. Somehow these elements try and touch base with players. Most of them (India players), whenever it happens, they do report to us that I have got contact.” the IPS officer added.
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With many top players being proactive on social media, All of them are involved in Instagram live or Questions n A sessions on Twitter doing this lockdown. Ajit Singh spoke about practical problems as players are in touch with millions of people during such sessions.
“Whatever can be tracked online, we do that. But obviously the physical verification part of going out and checking locations is out of the question in times of a lockdown. But if something comes to our notice, it automatically goes into our database and once lockdown is over, we will verify those if the need arises.”
The former DGP of Rajasthan also mentions how social media tracking is one of the easiest aspects of tracking and can be done with less resources at hand.
“A few men who know their jobs can do it pretty well. We are not adversaries of players. The players and ACU are one team. It’s the people who are trying to corrupt the games, they are the ones we need to track down,” Singh said
Ajit said physical verification of corrupt approaches is a very difficult task. He added that it comes with its own set of challenges.
“Those who were trying to corrupt the players using fake IDs on social media handles, converge at some point. Either it’s the same person with a fake ID who tries to approach the player. Or They use someone on their behalf. So there is a pattern of convergence. One has to follow both the lines,” the BCCI ACU head said.
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Singh comments on how BCCI ACU has been approached by former players when they found something fishy. “There have been things coming from current players and also retired players. There has been information coming from them. Things that they doubted, which look suspicious Any information is useful. Even if it’s a false alarm, it raises the awareness level of the players. It also helps to develop the skills of the team investigating it,” he added.
