Officials at Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA) and KyaZoonga, its’ ticketing partner, have confirmed that they identified and caught a few counterfeit/fake tickets during the first ODI held at Dharamsala on Sunday, January 27th during the time of ticket checking at the gates and immediately brought it to the attention of the local police officials present at the match.
In its press communiqué, they said that the Police officials were briefed on the security features on authentic tickets that were not present on the counterfeit tickets. Authentic tickets generally incorporate several features such as special paper, marks, ink, barcodes, and other such parameters that can be identified using laser scanners, UV lights, other specialized equipment and the naked eye.
CEO of KyaZoonga Neetu Bhatia clarified
High demand events such as the first ODI in the state of Himachal have tremendous fan interest and sadly that also means tremendous scalper interest and some scalpers create fake tickets and sell them to unknowing fans. It can be devastating to be turned away at the gates because of counterfeit tickets and we feel their pain. Clearly, the validation systems that detected the counterfeit tickets acted as a deterrent for further abuse. We always ask potential buyers to buy tickets only from the official channels
HPCA PRO and spokesperson Sanjay Sharma stated that “While this was our first ODI, HPCA has been organizing several matches including hosting the IPL over the last several years and we were very aware and prepared to deal with issues like this. Our joint teams are providing all cooperation to the local police in their efforts to bring the perpetrators to book”
Earlier yesterday, Himachal police, posted at Dharamsala stadium for the security, recovered about fifty counterfeit ticket from several cricket fans during the India-England ODI match at HPCA stadium.
