Manoj Prabhakar arrested

The Uttaranchal Director General of Police A K Saran on Monday said that his men had arrested former cricketer Manoj Prabhakar from his office in Malviya Nagar in south Delhi in connection with cheating of investors by the Apace group of companies.

Saran told rediff.com  from his office in Dehradun, "A team of the Uttaranchal police went to his house in Kalkaji but failed to find Prabhakar. Then the team went looking for him at his office in Malviya Nagar in south Delhi, from where he was picked up."

A Delhi court has granted transit remand for Manoj Prabhakar to enable the police to take him to Uttaranchal.

Saran added that while Prabhakar had got bail from the Uttaranchal High court in one case, he did not move the court for bail in another case that was pending against him.

Prabhakar had denied having anything to do with the Apace group of companies, which had cheated investors in Uttaranchal, Delhi, Lucknow, Kanpur and other places of several crores of rupees.

Divya Nautiyal, owner of the Apace group, had included the name of Prabhakar as one of the directors in the company and was using it to attract investors who were promised hefty returns.

Efforts to contact Prabhakar's relatives proved futile.

In an earlier interview to rediff.com, Prabhakar had denied being involved in any sort of financial dealing with the Apace group of companies.

"I do not know if someone used my pictures to convince people to invest money in the Apace group of companies," he said.

Divya Nautiyal had also told rediff.com that Prabhakar had never been on the board of directors and had nothing to do with the financial transactions of the company.

But hundreds of investors last year showed signatures of Manoj Prabhakar on the bonds issued by the company.

"If someone wanted to take autographs on those bonds, I could not help it," Prabhakar had then said in his defence.

Also read:
• Prabhakar pleads 'innocent'

• Prabhakar denies links with Apace

• 'We will welcome him with a garland of chappals'

• Another cheating case against Prabhakar

• Prabhakar declared 'proclaimed offender'

• Arrest warrant against Prabhakar stayed