Sharjah, Jan 15: Indian football team head coach Stephen Constantine has stepped down after the team's shock 0-1 defeat to Bahrain which led to its exit from the showpiece Asian Cup.

The All India Football Federation, in its official twitter handle, said that the 56-year-old Constantine has resigned.

"Mr. @StephenConstan has announced his resignation as the Head Coach of the Indian National Team. We haven't received any official communication from him yet but we accept his decision & thank him for his contribution to #Indianfootball: Mr. Kushal Das, General Secretary, AIFF," the tweet said.

His contract was to end on January 31.

Constantine's resignation came after India crashed out of the showpiece Asian Cup under dramatic circumstances here Monday.

India were on the verge of booking its maiden knockout round berth as the final Group A match was 0-0 till the 90th minute when Bahrain earned a penalty which the West Asian team converted to win the game under dramatic circumstances.

India needed just a draw to qualify for the Round of 16 but the defeat meant that it finished at the bottom of the four-team Group A to crash out of the tournament.

The Anglo-Cypriot coach took over the reigns of the team in 2015 for an initial two-year tenure. He was given one-year contract extension twice.

It was his second stint as India coach after serving as coach in 2002-05.

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Kolkata (PTI): Seven people were arrested from the Parnashree area in the southern part of the city for allegedly running a fake call centre, a police officer said on Saturday.

Acting on a tip-off, police raided a house on Netaji Subhas Road on Friday night and found the fake call centre operating from the ground floor, he said.

Preliminary investigation revealed that the accused had set up a bogus company using forged documents and posed as employees of an antivirus firm to call citizens in the US, the officer said.

"The callers would gain the trust of victims and then use remote access to take control of their phones or other digital devices. The accused allegedly siphoned off large sums of money, running into millions of dollars, from victims' accounts," he said.

Five laptops, two WiFi routers, six mobile phones and four headsets were seized from the accused, he said, adding that the seven are being questioned to ascertain the full extent of the racket and to identify others involved.