Jagdish Sodha

Jagdish Sodha appears in Mafia Queens of Mumbai as a shadowy but pivotal figure in the international cricket betting scandal that engulfed the bar dancer Tarannum Khan. A bookie who had crossed over into film production, Sodha is named during investigations into Tarannum's affairs as one of the bookies who allegedly passed on a Sri Lankan cricketer's illegal money to her. His role in the narrative is defined less by his own actions on the page than by the accusations that connect him to the nexus of gambling, Bollywood, and international sport, making him a representative of the hidden financial networks that the book exposes.

Identity and Background

Sodha is introduced in the context of the investigation into Tarannum Khan's betting activities, which came to light after an Income Tax department raid on her bungalow, Tanishq, in suburban Mumbai in 2005. The raid unearthed phone numbers of notorious cricket bookies on her cell phone, and among the several names that emerged during the investigations was that of Sodha, described as a 'bookie-turned producer'. This dual identity—rooted in the illegal world of betting but reaching into the legitimate entertainment industry—marks him as a figure who straddles two seemingly separate spheres of Mumbai life. His background as a bookie is established by his association with other bookies like Shobhan Mehta, with whom he allegedly passed on the cricketer's money to Tarannum.

Role in the Cricket Betting Scandal

The core of Sodha's involvement in the narrative is his alleged connection to the Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan. Reports surfaced that Bollywood actor Aditya Pancholi had taken Muralitharan, who was in Mumbai for a cricket match, to the bar where Tarannum danced and introduced him to her. It was rumoured that Tarannum stashed the spinner's illegal money, earned through betting, in her home. Sodha, along with Shobhan Mehta, was accused by the Mumbai police of passing on this money to Tarannum. More seriously, Sodha was also accused by the police of paying Rs 8 lakh to the cricketer in September 2004 to fix matches in the ICC Knockout tournament, which was played in England. These allegations place Sodha at the centre of a scheme that threatened to jeopardise the careers of some of the world's most celebrated sportsmen, as the book notes.

Connection to Tarannum Khan

Tarannum Khan, in an interview given while she was elusive and unapproachable to the media, admitted to knowing Sodha very well, though she denied knowing Shobhan Mehta. She claimed that her involvement in cricket betting went back only six months and that she had wagered with just one bookie, called DJ, betting anything between Rs 15,000 and Rs 25,000. Her admission of a close acquaintance with Sodha, while distancing herself from Mehta, suggests that Sodha was a more familiar figure in her world. The book presents Sodha as one of the conduits through which the cricketer's alleged illegal earnings flowed to Tarannum, though the exact nature of their relationship is left to the reader's inference. Tarannum's own statements, in which she insisted she bet but did not know cricketers, serve to highlight the role of intermediaries like Sodha in the betting ecosystem.

Significance in the Narrative

Sodha's significance in Mafia Queens of Mumbai lies in his function as a link between the criminal underworld of betting and the glamorous worlds of Bollywood and international cricket. His alleged actions, as reported by the police, demonstrate how the illegal economy of gambling intersected with the lives of celebrities and sportsmen, creating a web of influence and corruption that the book seeks to expose. The fact that Sodha is a 'bookie-turned producer' further illustrates the porous boundary between crime and legitimate business in Mumbai, a theme that runs throughout the book's portraits of women who moved between illicit enterprises and respectable society. His presence in the narrative, though brief, underscores the book's broader argument that the city's thin veneer of civilization conceals a corrupt underbelly, as the praise for the book from Mint suggests. Sodha is not a central character in the way that Tarannum or other mafia queens are, but he is an essential part of the machinery that the book describes, a figure whose alleged crimes had the potential to shake the foundations of international sport.