03 April,2011 06:53 AM IST | | Kranti Vibhute
Four Arabs from Dubai were robbed of their tickets while in queue. But their online booking records helped them watch the final match
Among the frenzied masses headed towards Wankhede Stadium to watch the World Cup final match were families, vendors as well as petty thieves waiting to rob people of their tickets to sell them in the black market.
The Patels were robbed outside the stadium. Pic/Bipin Kokate
A group of four Arabs from Dubai, belonging to the Patel community, fell prey to these thieves. They lost their tickets worth Rs 1.5 lakh while standing in queue at the entrance of the stadium from where people were sent towards gates 1, 2 and 3.
All of them were wearing blue-coloured long sleeved one-piece dresses (called Thoub) and orange-coloured headscarves (Shumagg) with a black band surrounding the top of the head (Ogal).u00a0Refusing to disclose his identity, one of the Arabs said, "We are tense as we came all the way from Dubai to cheer the Indian team. We had checked our tickets just a few minutes before when we were standing in queue.
But when we had to show it to the police we couldn't find them and realised that someone had robbed us.
When we asked them where they were staying, they refused to reveal anything, "We will inform the police and seek help from them. We have incurred a big loss. The tickets were quite costly and we didn't realise that we will get robbed like this," admitted another Arab.
A police official from the Marine Drive chowky where Gate 1 is located said, "Till now, we didn't receive any complaint of tickets being robbed. But the group of Arabs was the first to approach us with such a complaint. They should have kept their tickets properly if they were so costly. Now, we have asked them to lodge a police complaint in the Marine Drive police station.
We have sent our policemen with them to the police station."u00a0But all ended well for the Arabs thanks to their online booking. Based on the online records, they were able to get entry into the stadium to watch the World Cup final.
