5 remanded to police custody in inter-state bogus ticket racket

Vadodara, Feb 2 (UNI) The city police have sounded an alert after it busted an inter-state bogus ODI ticket racket during the fourth and final ODI cricket match between India and West Indies played at the IPCL ground here on January 31.

Preliminary interrogation of Ashok Satpal Jath, one of the five remanded to Vadodara Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) police custody, has brought forth the fact that the gang which had a strong network in major cities, was operating from Mumbai.

A resident of Maal Road in Kanpur, Jath who was remanded to crime branch custody for 12 days yesterday after he was arrested with over 50 duplicate tickets of the India-West India match on Wednesday, had reportedly confessed to his involvement in the racket for the last five years.

DCB investigating officer S Baria said Jatha was working as an agent and had come to Vadodara with a 7-member gang having obtained the fake tickets from the main operating centre--Mumbai.

The four others identified as Ankit Gupta (Delhi), Mohammad Afzal Iqbal Sheikh (Nagpur), Kanhaiya Jha and Arvind Jaiswal (both of Vadodara) had however been remanded to police custody for seven days, police said adding that four more were under detention in connection with the racket.

Jath had reportedly confessed that he had been to Nagpur and Cuttack with other members of the gang to sell duplicate tickets of the first two India-West Indies ODI matches played there.

Stating that the concerned authorities had been alerted against circulation of duplicate tickets during the forthcoming India-Sri Lanka home series by the gang, police sources said investigating teams would soon leave for Mumbai and other places in the country to trace out prime accused involved in the racket.

UNI