Undercover cops blend in with fans to snap betting, fake ticket networks
Hindustan Times|May 22, 2023
"I have only three tickets... ₹5,000 for each." A slightly built man, wearing a white t-shirt, speaks to a small crowd, which swells rapidly around him, at a petrol station right next to Delhi's Arun Jaitley Stadium.
Shiv Sunny
Undercover cops blend in with fans to snap betting, fake ticket networks

Hordes of people, meanwhile, make their way through the ground's entry gates, to watch Delhi Capitals play against Royal Challengers Bangalore on a Saturday evening. The crowd soon begins clamouring, each voice getting more boisterous by the second, as more join in. A group of five or six has become a gathering of 20 in less than a minute. "I'll take all three tickets for ₹27,000 each," says one man. Another man makes a more tempting bid.

Meanwhile, the toss was complete, and the chance of landing a ticket was evaporating by the second. Suddenly, a stout young man wearing blue track pants and a maroon t-shirt, with the Delhi Capitals emblem painted on both his cheeks, tore through the mob and swooped down on the ticket seller. He grabbed the man's neck in a vice grip and whisked him away without a word. The tickets went with him, and the heartbroken mob dispersed. That man in maroon is part of a 20-member special police wing carved out with the express purpose of clamping down on a host of crimes that mushroom in and around the stadium during the Indian Premier League (IPL) every summer. This team is formed before every IPL season, but does not have a name as such. Informally, officers call the team the IPL team, or the stadium team.

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