• According to reports received till Friday afternoon, Calcutta Police have so far arrested 16 people in connection with sale of Sunday match tickets in black market rates. Police confirmed having recovered 94 tickets so far from the miscreants. Seven complaints were registered at the Maidan and Entally Police Stations over the last couple of days alleging connivance of BCCI, CAB and ticketing portal officials based on which cases were indexed, police said

Sustained agitations from aggrieved Life Members of the Cricket Association of Bengal, who are protesting non-receipt of complimentary tickets for the upcoming India-South Africa World Cup tie at the Eden Gardens on Sunday, dragged former BCCI president Sourav Ganguly to the stadium to pre-empt further escalation of the ticket crisis which the state’s cricket promotion body currently finds embroiled in.

Ganguly, who is also part of a committee to oversee the organising of five matches at the Eden Gardens including a semi-final tie, rushed to the stadium on a day the Kolkata Police confirmed having arrested seven people for black marketing match tickets and confiscating 55 tickets from the miscreants.

Of the 11,000-odd Life Members of the CAB who conventionally receive complimentary match tickets for every international game played at the Eden Gardens, only 3,000 were fortunate enough to lay their hands on prized tickets for the India-South Africa battle this time. CAB officials maintain that all tickets for the 67,000-spectator-capacity stadium have already been sold out. Day-long protests

Aggrieved members alleged they were deprived by means of an “online distribution fraud” where the designated website remained “non-functional” for most periods of the distribution window shutting out the hopefuls who spent days in front of their computer screens and mobile phones for registration access. Even in some cases, it was alleged, organizers stopped short of providing the promised registration ID on users’ phones even after members somehow managed to cross the access hurdles.

Over the last couple of weeks, the Calcutta Maidan has remained witness to multiple agitations by cricket enthusiasts of the city who alleged not enough tickets for World Cup matches at the Eden Gardens were sold over ticket counters.

“We have looked into the CAB’s constitution and nowhere does it say that Life Members have automatic rights to match tickets,” Ganguly said following a meeting at the CAB on Thursday. “The CAB has no role in distribution of tickets since these are ICC-organized matches. Distribution of tickets are being done in accordance with BCCI diktats,” he added.

Asserting that such craze over tickets are usual in top-of-the-order tournaments like the World Cup where demands keep jumping with the progress of the competition, the former Indian skipper said: “I have seen prices of World Cup football final ticket prices soaring to Rs 17 lakh rupees each in the black market when their original price is some $ 2000-3000. It’s the job of the police to keep the black marketers at bay and stop such malpractices, but the CAB can’t do much about that.”

Acting on a complaint from a cricket enthusiast who alleged that the online ticketing portal, BookMyShow, connived with the officials of CAB and BCCI to deny tickets for the Sunday’s match to the general public, a case was registered at the Maidan Police Station and appearance notice before the investigation officer concerned was sent to both CAB and the ticketing portal, police said. “We have received a cryptic reply from the CAB but that isn’t enough for our investigation. We have, hence, asked for more details,” said Vineet Goyal, Calcutta police commissioner.

The complainant further alleged a section of officials of all the three organizations responsible for distribution of tickets “have purposefully put aside a large chunk of tickets meant for general public making those available for black-marketers for the purpose of their personal gains,” a Kolkata Police communication read. “We are closely looking into this complaint. We have already arrested seven people in connection with this case and recovered 55 tickets. We are investigating how these tickets were procured in bulk and how they were, subsequently, transferred to the buyers,” the police commissioner said.

On Monday, police arrested a man named Ankit Agarwal for selling India Vs South Africa match tickets priced at Rs. 2500 at Rs. 11,000 each and seized 20 match tickets from his possession. “There is a lot of frenzy and interest over the match. We will ensure that the event passes without a glitch,” Goyal reassured.