CBI questions Manoj Prabhakar

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JULY 4. The CBI today examined Manoj Prabhakar, former cricket all-rounder who blew the whistle on match fixing scandal two years ago.

The Special Crime Branch of the CBI, probing the match fixing scandal, summoned Prabhakar and questioned him for nearly two and a half hours at the agency's headquarters here.

Prabhakar was summoned by the CBI for the first time after he submitted videotapes to the agency containing conversations of players and administrators about match fixing. The tapes were secretly filmed by him.

The CBI has questioned a number of former and current players and administrators who had appeared in the video tapes to verify if they corroborated the contents of the tapes, running into some nine hours.

Sources indicated that Prabhakar was confronted with the versions of those who appeared on his tapes and who were questioned by the CBI.

The CBI has already questioned Ajit Wadekar and Navjot Singh Sidhu twice besides Nayan Mongia, Mohammad Azharuddin and Prashant Vaidya. But all the four are believed to have denied authenticity of the taped conversation. Vaidya had gone to the extent of saying that the tapes had been ``doctored.''

The former physiotherapist of the cricket team, Ali Irani, was questioned by the agency on Saturday. Sources said that Irani had also denied his conversation with Prabhakar.

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