Bhopal, July 12 -- Punjab Kings (PBKS) batter Shashank Singh on Sunday alleged that Vipendra Singh Tomar, the cook who accused him of physical assault, was a habitual offender with multiple criminal cases. He further claimed that the incident was part of a pre-planned extortion attempt.

Singh said the worker, hired directly rather than through a registered agency, had nine FIRs registered against him since 2018, including cases of attempted murder, robbery and house trespassing, and had been convicted in four of them.

"FIR was registered on 29 June, and the worker's background verification was done through the Gram Panchayat and local police. Although he had come to work for only a month and it was just his third day, it was found that ...