The Bangladesh Cricket Board will seek advice from the law ministry to see whether any new law could be introduced to combat sports crime, said an official on Saturday.
The decision came after the Indian government announced a similar move to deal with unfair practices in sport in the wake of some damaging spot-fixing allegations in the Indian Premier League competition.
Bangladesh were also shaken by similar allegations after former national skipper Mohammad Ashraful had been implicated in reports for his part in the scandal during the recent Bangladesh Premier League.
ICC’s Anti-Corruption and Security Unit quizzed Ashraful and few other players as they suspected his involvement in fixing two BPL matches in which he led Dhaka Gladiators.
‘We need to see whether there is any need to introduce new laws to combat sports crime,’ Jalal Yunus, chairman of the BCB’s media and communication committee, told reporters at Mirpur.
‘We have to take tough measures to fight against this ill-practice and it requires new guidelines from the law ministry,’ said Jalal, adding that India has also taken similar initiatives.
The law minister of India, Kapil Sibal, told reporters in New Delhi that his government has decided to enact a legislation to deal with unfair practices in sport as soon as possible.
International news agencies quoted Sibal as saying that the new legislation would deal with dishonest practices like spot-fixing which has been under the spotlight since three cricketers were arrested on May 16 for deliberately bowling badly.
‘We cannot let down millions of fans out there for whom cricket is a passion. But the new law will not apply to cricket alone. It will apply to all sports in which unfair practices are being used to change the outcome or course of a game,’ Sibal said.
India’s law minister did not specify what punishments would be handed out for spot-fixing is an illegal activity where a specific part of a game, but not the outcome, is fixed.
The BCB said a tough law may be needed to tackle fixers who earlier escaped using the loopholes of laws.
In the first edition of the BPL, a suspected Pakistani bookie called Sajid Khan was arrested on February 26
The alleged bookie was handed over to the police after the BCB had found out the bank accounts of Nasir Jamshed of Chittagong Kings and the e-mail address of Dhaka Gladiators’ Rana Naveed-ul Hasan in his mobile phone inbox.
The Pakistani was released on bail after spending several days in jail and it was learnt that he had left for Pakistan,
‘We could only hand him over to the police and that is what we did,’ said Jalal.
‘If there was any tough law regarding this kind of crime perhaps he could have been punished,’ said Jalal.
-With New Age input
