Amid allegations of black marketing of tickets for the ICC Cricket World Cup match between India and South Africa at Eden Gardens, Kolkata Police on Saturday sent a notice to the President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Roger Binny, and asked to provide relevant documents or information regarding the sale of tickets of Sunday's match by them or any competent person of the organisation to the IO of Maidan PS, who is investigating the complaints regarding black marketing of the tickets.
"A notice was sent to the BCCI president, asking him to provide relevant documents and information regarding the sale of tickets either personally or through any competent person of his organisation to the investigating officer of Maidan PS during working hours on Tuesday," the officer told PTI.
On Kolkata Police notice, BCCI Vice-President Rajeev Shukla said, "BCCI has tried that tickets are availed to maximum fans. BCCI spoke to the state association of all 12 venues that online tickets should be booked. The online booked tickets were either couriered or given hand to hand at a decided place...There is a direct agreement between the state association and the ticket-distributing agency... BCCI only has an advisory role to ensure that more and more fans get the tickets. That advice was given by the BCCI to all state associations. BCCI is nowhere directly responsible for this... BCCI and ICC made a rule that transferring tickets to another name or resale is prohibited. If someone still does it, then the police have to stop them, BCCI is not responsible."
Kolkata Police has so far arrested 19 people and seized 108 tickets from them, besides lodging seven cases pertaining to the black marketing of tickets.
This comes days after Kolkata Police summoned officials of the Cricket Association of Bengal and the online ticket booking portal after a complaint was lodged alleging black marketing of tickets for the ICC World Cup match between India and South Africa, which is set to take place on Sunday, news agency PTI reported, citing an officer.
The notices were issued to CAB and the online ticket booking portal, asking them to appear on Thursday, but the officer said none of the representatives of CAB and the online ticket booking portal appeared before them.
On Wednesday, Maidan Police Station registered a case after receiving a complaint from cricket fans alleging black marketing of tickets "owing to the connivance of an online portal along with officials of the CAB and Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)" for the India-South Africa match on Sunday, he said, as reported by PTI.
As per the complainants, certain BCCI and CAB officials, along with the online ticket booking portal, intentionally reserved a good number of tickets meant for the general public to make them available for black-marketers. The allegations were refuted by a senior official of the CAB, who said that they were only hosting the match and had no involvement in the sale of the tickets, which was looked after by the online portal and the International Cricket Council (ICC).