Ranji Trophy Final: Shorey's ton lifts Delhi to 271/6 on Day 1
Indore: Dhruv Shorey's unbeaten ton helped Delhi score 271/6 on the opening day of their Ranji Trophy final match against Vidarbha at the Holkar Cricket Stadium here on Friday.
Shorey (123) and Vikas Mishra (5) were at the crease when umpires dislodged the bails for the day.
Put in to bat, Delhi started off on a poor note as openers Kunal Chandela (0) and Gautam Gambhir (15) failed to provide the start the team wanted. Chandela was dismissed in the first over by Aditya Thakare.
After adding 29 runs to the score, Gambhir was also sent packing by Akshay Wakhare in the 13th over.
Shorey then came in the middle but lack of support from the other end cost Delhi heavily.
Apart from Himmat Singh (66), no other middle-order batsmen -- Nitish Rana (21), Rishabh Pant (21) and Manan Sharma (13) -- contributed much to the cause and thus only managed to get 271 on the first day.
For Vidarbha, Thakare and Rajneesh Gurbani took two wickets apiece while Siddesh Neral and Wakhare chipped in with a wicket each.
Brief scores: Delhi 271/6 (Dhruv Shorey 123 not out, Himmat Singh 66; Rajneesh Gurbani 2/44) against Vidarbha.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Kerala: ED files money laundering case in Sabarimala gold loss case
Thiruvananthapuram/New Delhi (PTI): The Enforcement Directorate on Friday filed a money laundering case in the Sabarimala gold loss case in Kerala, official sources said.
The federal probe agency's Kochi zonal office has registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), an ED equivalent of a police FIR, under various sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), they said.
The politically sensitive case is already being investigated by a state special investigation team (SIT) under the supervision of the Kerala High Court.
In December, the high court had allowed the ED to undertake an independent investigation into the case after it dismissed objections raised by the SIT against sharing the case information with the central agency.
The SIT is probing two cases related to the gold loss incident and has arrested 11 people so far. The latest to be arrested by the SIT was Kandararu Rajeevaru, the chief priest of the Lord Ayyappa temple.
The other prominent persons arrested in the case by the SIT are Bengaluru-based businessman and prime accused Unnikrishnan Potty and former Travancore Devaswom Board president A Padmakumar.
The ED is expected to soon look for more evidence, question the accused, and it may also go on to attach certain assets of those involved if it finds that they generated "proceeds of crime", according to the officials.
The probe is related to a series of irregularities, including official misconduct, administrative lapses and a criminal conspiracy to misappropriate the gold from the various artefacts of the Lord Ayyappa shrine.
The investigation by the SIT, and now by the ED, is related to the loss of gold from the gold-cladded copper plates of the Dwarapalaka (guardian deity) idols and the door frames of the Sreekovil (sanctum sanctorum) of the temple.
The SIT has informed the High Court that its probe found "a series of serious official misconduct and administrative lapses on the part of the Devaswom officials right from the initial correspondence till the handing over of the door frame plates, connected plates, Dwarapalaka plates and pillar plates to Unnikrishnan Potty without proper authorisation".
It further said in its statement that Govardhan, Pankaj Bhandari, the CEO of Chennai-based Smart Creations, which carried out the electroplating of the artefacts from the temple, Potty and the other accused hatched a criminal conspiracy with malicious intention to misappropriate the gold cladded on the copper plates in and around the shrine.
"It is found during the investigation that all these criminal activities were part of a large conspiracy and an organised crime committed by the accused persons.
"They had a larger plan to dismantle other gold-clad items on the Sabarimala Sreekovil and to extract the gold from them for misappropriation," it said.
