Cuttack: After the early morning chaos amid massive turnout of cricket enthusiasts at the ticket counters at Barabati Stadium in Odisha’s Cuttack, reports of alleged ticket scalping for the first T20I between India and South Africa on December 9, have now emerged.
Taking advantage of the high demand for the December 9 clash, black-market brokers are reportedly selling special enclosure tickets (original price Rs 6,000) for Rs 10,000 each. Likewise, tickets for the first and third galleries, which officially cost Rs 1,100, are being resold for up to Rs 6,000. Brokers are also offering discounts for bulk buys, claiming that purchasing five tickets together can get buyers a better deal, a local channel claimed.
Several elderly women, suspected to be the part of the black-marketing gang, were seen lined up for tickets.
The official ticket counters opened at 10 am this morning, offering 10,000 tickets with one person allowed to buy 2 tickets by producing a valid ID.
The alleged black-market activities have come despite deployment of police in plain-clothes around ticket counters and major access roads to prevent illegal ticket resale. The whole ticketing zone is also under CCTV surveillance ensure transparency and quick response to incidents of black-marketing or forced crowding.
Early Morning Chaos
According to sources, hundreds of cricket enthusiasts, mostly youngsters, started gathering well before dawn, forming endless queues that snaked around the stadium. The crowd kept growing through the night despite an official order against overnight camping near the stadium and people pushed and jostled for position, anxiously waiting for the barricades to open.
Moments later, chaos ensued as fans violently pushed forward even as the ticket counters had barely opened. A video clip, circulating on social media, showed them shouting and stumbling as several individuals breached the queues, entering from the flanks or dashing forward from the rear, prompting serious concerns over crowd safety.
Police have installed steel barricades in a serpentine pattern, nearly 800 metres from the ticket counters to manage long queues with separate exit routes to maintain unidirectional flow and avoid bottlenecks, against the backdrop of the stampede-like situation earlier this February when thousands of fans jostled for offline tickets of India vs England’s second ODI.
A dedicated counter has been arranged exclusively for women to ensure smoother access.
