Bengaluru, Oct 30 (IANS): Karnataka police arrested a District Crime Bureau's head constable for allegedly running an IPL betting racket in Chikkaballpura district on Thursday.

Chikkaballapura police was in a shock when a betting racket ring leader raised his voice and challenged them to arrest their own staff member who was running a bigger IPL betting racket than him.

According to the police, the arrested is identified as Manjunath (42), resident of Chintamani, Head Constable, District Crime Bureau, Chikkaballapura.

The police said that he tested Covid positive and was admitted to Chintamani hospital.

According to a senior police officer, the accused Manjunath had been running this racket for quite a long time.

"He was part of police investigation team which keeps tab on gambling, betting and prostitution, whenever the team arrested gambling or betting masters, he used to take note of their modus operandi and use them to conduct his own racket. In this process he also used to help these masters to escape or alert them about the police movement too," the officer explained.

The officer further added that the accused used to encourage people to bet on high value assets like land and residential plots besides large sums of cash as well. "He has also taken help of several betting racket masters to run his own racket," the officer added.

Speaking to IANS, Chikkaballapura district Superintendent of Police, G. K. Mithun Kumar said that the constable was suspended last week itself and he was under surveillance for a long time.

"Following the information given by the person who was arrested last week for running a cricket betting racket here, we arrested Manjunath. He was taken into custody on Thursday evening but tested Covid positive after customary health check-up," the SP said.

The police registered a case and further investigation is going on.