HCA member, 3 others held for illegal sale of Ind Vs WI T20 tickets | Hyderabad News

Hyderabad: Goshamahal police have arrested a member of the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) and three others for allegedly selling complimentary tickets on the black market for the India vs West Indies T20 International match to be held at RGI stadium in Uppal on Wednesday.The accused were identified as Satish Chandra Srivastava, an HCA member; his son Akarshit Srivastava; and their associates, Avinash Darak of Koti and Mohith Somani of Saidabad. A patrolling team from Goshamahal police station, led by ASI V Janardhan Naik, received information at around 9.30 pm on Oct 12 about the illegal sale of T20 match tickets near SD Mall in Begum Bazaar.The police team reached the spot and caught Darak and Somani in possession of 11 complimentary tickets for the Oct 14 match with the ‘NOT FOR SALE’ mark. Police also seized eight passes for the Namdhari Gaurav Navratri Utsav dandiya event, a two-wheeler, three mobile phones and Rs 5,000 in cash from the duo.During interrogation, the duo confessed that they had obtained the complimentary tickets from Akarshit for sale on the black market. “They advertised the tickets on WhatsApp and Instagram and were selling them Rs 3,500 to Rs 6,000 per ticket, depending on the pavilion. Akarshit confessed that his father is a HCA member and had obtained the tickets from him. Akarshit handed over the tickets to Avinash Darak for sale through the latter’s brother-in-law, Somani,” Goshamahal inspector B Sravan Kumar said.Police booked the four accused under Sections 112 (1) (petty organised crime), 318 (2) (cheating punishment) of the BNS, along with Section 21(gg) of the City Police Act. “We will produce the accused before the magistrate for judicial remand. We have information that the accused had already sold about nine complimentary tickets. We will write to HCA to ascertain how many complimentary tickets were issued to Srivastava,” the inspector said. Warning that stringent legal action would be initiated against those involved in the illegal sale of cricket match tickets, police appealed to the public to purchase tickets only through authorised channels and to report black marketing.