Bhanot, Verma's arrest rattles Kalmadi

Lalit Bhanot, former secretary general of the Commonwealth Organising committee and V K Verma, the OC's former director general, will be produced before the CBI special court in Patiala house to seek their custody for questioning while in police remand.

The Central Bureau of Investigation is probing alleged corruption in the organisation of the Commonwealth Games, which Delhi hosted last year.

Bhanot and Verma were summoned to the agency's headquarters by Girish Bhardwaj, Deputy Superintendent of Police, at 11 in the morning, in connection with the Rs 107 crore Swiss Time Keeping case against them. After being questioned for around 60 minutes they were arrested.

The news of their arrest has rattled Indian Olympic Association president Suresh Kalmadi, who was chairman of the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee. A close aide of Kalmadi confirmed that he is in touch with legal luminaries to chalk out the next course of action fearing also being arrested.

The National Conference, at the behest of its president Sharad Pawar, it is learnt, is asking the government why Kalmadi is being allowed to have gala time when persons like former telecom minister A Raja was arrested and sent to judicial custody in Tihar jail.

"I have not made a paisa in the Commonwealth Games," Suresh Kalmadi had said in a press note to the media a couple of days back. He maintains that he alone was not responsible for the decisions taken, and it was the joint responsibility of each and every member of the organizing and executive committee, which includes Delhi chief minister Shiela Dikshit.

The CBI had written to the Cabinet secretary that Kalmadi and Bhanot had been threatening and intimidating employees of the organizing committee, telling them not to divulge anything to CBI.