Officials of bookmyshow.com, the official website for the sale of World Cup tickets, responded to a Calcutta police summons and came to Maidan police station on Friday. The Cricket Association of Bengal president, Snehasish Ganguly, allegedly did not respond to a summons that had asked him to appear for examination by 8pm on Friday.
Metro sought the reaction of CAB secretary Naresh Prabhulal Ojha on the matter but received no response till Friday night.
Joint commissioner (crime), Calcutta police, Shankha Shubhra Chakrabarty said on Friday that the CAB president had been sent a notice on Thursday, which was received at the CAB office around 8pm. “The notice said he should be present before police in the next 24 hours,” he said.
Officials of bookmyshow.com were questioned for several hours by officers of the south division and of the detective department of the Calcutta police at Maidan police station on Friday afternoon.
Allegations have surfaced that a large number of Calcuttans who tried to book tickets for the India-South Africa match at the Eden Gardens on Sunday either found the tickets to be “sold out” on the portal or were asked to “wait in the queue”, while many have been found in possession of tickets that were being sold at a higher cost.
Investigators said they have sought login details of the portal to access information of the tickets sold. “The time of sale and the quantity of tickets sold to individual mail IDs will be important to ascertain if there has been any malpractice,” said an officer.
One of the arrested — Hemal Shah — has been found to be close to CAB officials, the police said.
A fresh summons was issued to Ganguly late on Friday.