Thousands of desperate cricket fans were still waiting in front of different City Bank and Agrani Bank branches countrywide for a ticket of the World Cup matches amid endless pain.
Some of them have already completed their 48 hours of waiting under the open sky and still did not gain entrance to the bank. The bank officials provided some tokens to the waiting fans which gave them a renewed hope after two days of agony.
Advocate Alauddin is just one of them.
‘I have been waiting since Saturday evening and the positive side is that I have got the serial token,’ said Alauddin on Monday who was found in front of the City Bank’s New Market branch.
Several branches have introduced a coupon for the people who are in front of the queue. They were told that they would get a ticket at some stage. But there are many people who are not even lucky enough to get the coupon.
‘I and my friends are here from yesterday [Sunday] morning. We have not got the coupons yet. Now our mission has turned into getting a coupon rather than getting a ticket voucher,’ said Nefaur Rahman, a Dhaka College student, standing in the queue in front of a City Bank branch on the Dhanmondi Road No 2.
‘They gave 1,000 tokens and most of those fortunate persons are still waiting outside the bank. I don’t know when our turn will come,’ he added.
Most of the enthusiasts complained that the banks are taking a lot of time to complete the ticket voucher issuing process which Khorshed Alam, a City Bank employee brushed aside as baseless.
‘Every individual is buying more tickets today which is taking more time to finish the deal with every person but the average time to issue each ticket voucher is less than that of yesterday as the internet speed is faster today,’ said Khorshed, who works at the City Bank’s Karwan Bazar branch and is involved with the ticketing procedure.
The competition for tickets is so intense that not a single person is ready to leave his place in the queue for a moment even in case of emergency in fear of losing the spot. ‘I have been standing in the line for the last two days and now they are not allowing me to get in as I left for only several minutes in order to have some food,’ said Farhad Kabir at the Bangabandhu Avenue branch of the City Bank. The closure of the bank in the evening did not reduce the number of people in line but it increased as some joined it after finishing their daily work.
Some ticket hunters informed about the presence of several syndicates in different ticket booths. Saiful Islam, a Standard Chartered Bank employee who was waiting outside the City Bank.s Bangabandhu Avenue branch, said: ‘A group called Bangla Brigade is trying to control the queue. They made their own list and pushed 30 to 40 people into the line.’
Police refused the allegation saying they were unaware of such thing.
Most of the ticket seekers, however, will have to return empty-handed as the number of them are far more than the capacity of the World Cup venues. The only consolation for them could be a good performance by their favourite teams.
