Police have arrested 16 people and seized at least 94 tickets for Sunday’s India-South Africa match at the Eden Gardens that were allegedly being sold for a premium.
The haul since November 1, sources in the police admitted, suggested that many more tickets for the big match could be selling in the black market.
This, at a time tens of thousands of people are complaining about not getting a chance to purchase tickets legally — either online or offline.
The police said they were in the process of identifying how the alleged black
marketeers procured these tickets.
A protester holds a poster outside the Eden Gardens 1 on Friday alleging that members of the Cricket Association of Bengal had not received tickets for the India-South Africa match on Sunday.
Separate cases have been lodged against the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) and the official ticket-selling portal bookmyshow.com which, the police said, are under investigation.
Joint commissioner (crime), Calcutta police, Shankha Shubhra Chakrabarty said out of the eight persons who have been arrested for the unauthorised sale of tickets, three were selling Rs 900 tickets for Rs 8,000.
“Subhradip Bhattacharya, Suman Sarder and Sandipan Laha were arrested for
trying to sell Sunday’s match tickets that were originally Rs 900 for Rs 8,000 each. A total of 17 tickets have been seized from them,” said Chakrabarty.
A case has been initiated at Netajinagar police station under sections of cheating and under the West Bengal Black Marketing Act 1948 against the arrested persons, officials of the online ticket booking portal bookmyshow.com and the CAB.
Three others were arrested on Thursday near Shahid Minar.
Harsh Gupta, 21, and Harshit Agarwal, 21, were arrested from the Maidan area, in front of Shahid Minar. Based on their statement, Salman Ali, 27, was arrested from the Park Street-Chowringhee Road crossing.
A total of 12 tickets were found on the three men.
“Simultaneously, we received a complaint at Hare Street police station that
a person who had paid Rs 25,161.97 for three tickets through an online portal called viagogo.com was yet to get his tickets. The complainant also mentioned Harshit Agarwal (who was arrested from the Maidan area) saying that he helped the complainant book the tickets on behalf of the online portal,” said an officer.
This newspaper logged onto viagogo.com on Friday and tried to contact them on a phone number earmarked for “booking”.
The number did not have any “incoming call facility”, a recorded message said.
This newspaper found that this portal at 3.08pm on Friday claimed there were “241 tickets remaining” for the “India Vs South Africa — Cricket World Cup 2023”.
When this newspaper tried to purchase a ticket at 3.09pm, the portal displayed “79 tickets remaining”.
Islamul Hoda and Hemal Shah, both from AJC Bose Road, were arrested near Moulali for allegedly possessing 10 tickets for Sunday’s World Cup match. They have been booked under sections of cheating and under the West Bengal Black Marketing Act, 1948, at Entally police station.
Several Calcuttans complained about the faulty system adopted for the sale and distribution of World Cup tickets in Calcutta.
Maidan was crowded with many such angry cricket fans on Friday.
From among a group of Maulana Azad College students, a third-year boy said: “I have been trying to purchase tickets at the Eden Gardens since the day the online booking started in September. From the first day, the portal either said I was in the queue or that the tickets had been sold out.”
Prasenjit Das, who lives off EM Bypass, had a similar story. He has been coming to the Mohammedan Sporting Club ground for the past five days hoping to buy a ticket offline.
“I don’t know where to get tickets. The online portal says all tickets are sold out while the offline counters are redeeming only the online tickets,” Das complained.
Two German tourists were also in the queue of people returning empty-handed from Maidan on Friday afternoon.
“We had no idea there would be so much craze for tickets. Had we got the tickets, this would have been our first experience of watching a match inside a stadium,” Fabien Mueller told this newspaper.
Cheating case
Calcutta police have started a cheating case against a man named Rony Ghosh for allegedly cheating several Calcuttans by making false promises of selling match tickets to them on Facebook.
Metro had reported how several Calcuttans, including a bank official from Bijoygarh, Soumyajyoti Banerjee, had been duped of Rs 94,000 while trying to purchase tickets for the Sunday match. Ramij Hasan Mallick, Class XII student at a school in Howrah’s Shyampur was also among the duped. He and a friend of his lost Rs 30,000, the police said.
Officers of the cyber police station at Lalbazar have started a case based on Banerjee’s complaint.