Thursday, 24 April 2025
Thursday, 24 April 2025
A day before the Indian Premier League’s inaugural match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore, the Kolkata Police arrested three persons involved in selling fake tickets of the match scheduled for Saturday evening at the Eden Gardens.
The cops recovered 27 tickets and over Rs. 20, 000 cash from the three arrested in two separate cases.
While Piyush Mahendra and his associate Kamal Hassan were arrested from a house in Mitra Lane, the third accused Shabaz Khan of Marquis Street was arrested from the New Market area while selling tickets.
A post on the social media account of one Ashish Sharma, who is yet to be apprehended, announced availability of tickets for Saturday evening’s match. The complainant Dhiraj Mali on seeing the post contacted Sharma. Mali was told to collect the tickets from a locality in Girish Park area.
At the pre-decided spot, Mali handed Rs. 20,000 in cash to Mahindra, who handed the complainant an envelope and left. When Mali opened the envelope, he saw two tickets priced at Rs. 1,000 each and two others were complementary.
Mali called Sharma on the same number that he had spoken first. This time Sharma did not take the calls. Mali then lodged a complaint with the Girish Park police station.
Investigating the case, the Girish Park police station’s cops tracked Mahindra and Hassan at the Mitra Lane house. Seventeen complementary tickets and four price tickets were found on them along with two mobile phones and Rs. 20,600 in cash.
Investigation is on to trace Sharma and others involved in the case.
In another case, the New Market police picked up Shahbaz and found six tickets in his possession. Two separate cases have been started under the West Bengal Black Marketing Act, 1948.
