World Cup ticket black marketing: Sourav Ganguly’s brother summoned by police; 16 held

On Friday, Kolkata police officials started interrogating officials of BookMyShow, the official ticketing partner of the International Cricket Council (ICC) for the 2023 Men’s Cricket World Cup, at the Maidan police station. BookMyShow officials were also served a notice Thursday. The Kolkata police have filed seven cases and arrested 16 people for black marketing of World Cup match tickets. The police, who seized 94 tickets, said tickets worth Rs 900 were being sold for Rs 8,000 in the black market.

The police have been conducting raids across different areas since Wednesday and keeping a close eye on social media to track shady deals ahead of the top-of-the-table clash between hosts India and South Africa at Eden Gardens on Sunday, November 5.

According to the police, acting on a specific complaint from a cricket fan, they arrested three men — Subhradip Bhattacharya, Suman Sarder and Sandipan Laha — for allegedly selling India-South Africa match tickets worth Rs 900 for Rs 8,000. A total of 17 tickets were recovered from the accused. A case was filed at the Netaji Nagar police station under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the West Bengal Black Marketing Act against the accused and officials of the CAB and BookMyShow.

The police on Thursday arrested two men — Harsh Gupta and Harshit Agarwal, both 21 — for allegedly selling tickets at higher prices at the maidan in front of Sahid Minar. The police recovered eight tickets and two mobile phones from the duo.

Meanwhile, Hare Street police station received a complaint from a cricket enthusiast alleging that though he had booked three tickets for the Sunday match through a website, viagogo.com, for Rs 25,161.97, he was not delivered the tickets. It was further alleged that during the booking, one of the accused, Agarwal, had called him over the phone to facilitate the booking process. The police filed a case against Gupta, Agarwal persons and the website.

Further, based on the statement of the accused, the police arrested one Salman Ali, 27, from the crossing of Park Street and J L Nehru Road and seized four tickets and one mobile phone. Acting on specific source information, the police on October 2 arrested Islamul Hoda alias Tinku and Hemal Shah from AJC Bose Road near Moulali Mazar with 10 tickets the duo had allegedly bought for selling in the black market. A case was filed at the Entally police station against them.

A case was registered at the cyber police station also after a person alleged that someone had cheated him, posing as an official ticket seller of the CAB. The complainant alleged that he paid Rs 94,000 to the accused, who went by the name Rony Ghosh on Facebook, for the match tickets.