Hyderabad, July 22 (IANS): Police in Hyderabad have busted a major cricket betting racket spread over four states and arrested 13 people.

Hyderabad Police Commissioner M. Mahender Reddy told reporters on Wednesday that searches were conducted in three places in the city on Tuesday while a Test match was going on between South Africa and Bangladesh.

Police found that the accused were involved in a betting racket spread over Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan.

He said Rs.26.48 lakh in cash and several communication equipments were seized during the raids.

The seized material includes four line boxes with CDMA cell phones, nine land phones, six laptops, three TV sets and 36 cell phones.

The searches were conducted by the Commissioner's Task Force (East Zone Team).

"This is an organised cricket betting racket where Satya Prakash Jindal alias Nikku, popularly called Nikku Bhai, organises betting in four states along with his associates," the police commissioner said.

"He has several sub-bookies with whom he shares information over cell phones and accepts betting," the commissioner added.

Nikku was accepting cricket bets over phones from sub-bookies and punters and was also providing phone connections to share updated betting rates to other bookies in Hyderabad and other states on commission basis.

He recruited seven people from Haryana, Rajastan and Punjab on a monthly salary basis to receive phone calls and betting rates information from punters and upload these and assist them during the matches, the police chief said.

Three cases were registered in Sultanbazar, Shahinayatgunj and Ramgopalpet police stations.