Secretaries of three prominent sports clubs have been served summons to appear before the crime branch, a day after three people connected with these clubs were held for allegedly selling complimentary passes and tickets for cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar's farewell match.
"We have summoned secretaries of Islam Gymkhana, Bombay Gymkhana and Garware Club, asking them to appear before us for inquiries at the earliest," an officer with the Property Cell of the Mumbai Police crime branch told PTI.
"The purpose is to find out how many complimentary passes and tickets were issued to each of these clubs by the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA), how they were distributed among club members and if any of these passes has not been accounted for," the officer said.
"We will also cross check this data with the MCA for any discrepancies. We are probing if the racket extends beyond these three clubs," the officer added.
Yesterday, three accused namely Janak Gandhi (52), member of Garware Club House and Girish Premnath (34) and Ajay Jadhav (36) who are workers at Bombay Gymkhana and Islam Gymkhana respectively, were arrested for selling a complimentary pass for Rs 25,000 and a Rs 1,000 ticket for Rs 8,000 outside the Wankhede Stadium.
The accused had sold the tickets to cops, who posed as cricket fans looking for tickets.
During the probe, the police discovered six more passes with the accused, which had been issued to Islam Gymkhana by the MCA, besides 15 other tickets, the officer said.
Only 5,000 of the 30,000 tickets at Wankhede Stadium were sold to the public for the test match, while the rest were distributed among cricket clubs affiliated to the MCA, which hosted the match.
Meanwhile, Gandhi, Premnath and Jadhav were produced in court today, which sent them to police custody till Saturday.
