Chandigarh, March 12
After reports of ticket holders being denied entry into the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium in Mohali on Sunday during the India-Zimbabwe One Day International, the issue of ‘’fake’’ tickets has also come into light
The Tribune is in possession of two sets of tickets — the ones distributed through official outlets like ICICI Bank and the PCA and those sold outside the stadium at a ‘’black’’ on the day of the match.
The official ticket in The Tribune possession is numbered 002922 for General Block (west) gate numbers 6 and 7. Two ‘’fake’’ tickets bear numbers 005219 and 005222 for General Block (west) for entry from the same gates.
The tickets have stark differences of hologram and quality of paper. While the official ticket has the hologram of the PCA with its approved shape and size the fake ones have an imitation on a silver coloured sticker.
The “fake” ones have an imitation of the hologram on which the Punjab Cricket Association is not readable and the size and the shape of the “imitated” PCA hologram is also not uniform.
The differences are so obvious that when a person who bought the Rs 100 ticket from outside the stadium, was entering from the gates number 6 and 7, a policeman told them the ticket was “fake” and asked them to stop but after their pleadings that the ‘’tickets were supplied by Pepsi, the two were allowed entry. The tickets in fact had been bought from a person outside the stadium.
The Mohali Deputy Superintendent of Police, Mr Amarjeet Singh Bajwa, when asked by The Tribune said there was no such complaint with the police.
When contacted on phone for comments on whether they knew of the “fake” tickets being in circulation or the PCA had itself not maintained uniformity, the PCA Secretary, Mr M. P. Pandove, and its Honorary Treasurer, Mr G. S. Walia, were told to be out of station.
