Two days after the Class II student’s body was found near an abandoned factory off Foreshore Road in Howrah about 15 km from Kolkata, the police are now learnt to be investigating into possibilities of whether the Lakhotia family’s shady connection with cricket betting had led to the kid’s kidnapping and eventual death.

Howrah SP Neeraj Kumar Singh guardedly said they are keeping all their options open while looking into the case. “We are looking at all options in this case, and the matter of match-fixing involvement is one of them,” he told The Indian Express.

Yash’s late uncle Arun Lakhotia is suspected to be the key in this murder case. Arun is learnt to have been deeply enmeshed in the illegal cricket betting racket. Back in 2003 during the cricket World Cup, he was picked up by the Kolkata Police for running an illegal betting racket in central Kolkata, and he later died of alleged torture.

In February 2003, three bookies — Rajesh Agarwal, Arun Jain and Arun Lakhotia—¿ were picked up from an apartment on Hariram Goenka Street. A third, Arun Lakhotia, was detained in his Nagerbazar residence. He fell ill after alleged torture in custody and had to be hospitalized, where he succumbed to injuries. Two police officers of Posta police were suspended for allegedly torturing him.

Meanwhile, Yash’s father Anil Lakhotia, who runs a popular sweetshop in Howrah, is learnt to have been very close to underworld don Santosh Singh. Santosh’s brother-in-law Ganesh Choudhary, who was working at Anil Lakhotia’s sweetshop, has been arrested in connection with the murder of the seven-year-old Yash.

The police however, clarified that any row over the match fixing booty between Lakhotia and interested parties is just one of the angles being probed. The actual murder motive is yet to be ascertained.