The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the Salt Lake Stadium violence during Argentina's World Cup winning captain Lionel Messi's visit, on Saturday freezed chief promoter Satadru Dutta's bank account of Rs 22 crore, it informed the Bidhannagar court.

The SIT during search operation at Dutta's Rishra home in Hooghly district on Friday seized luxury assets, incriminating documents and several bank passbooks and examined the alleged financial irregularities amounting upto Rs 100 crore.

The search was conducted following widespread allegations of gross mismanagement in the stadium and financial irregularities linked to the event. Police said the search operation was a “procedural" move to examine the documents and agreement papers with the visitors, including the iconic footballer.

Sources said the high-powered SIT, which interrogated arrested Satadru Dutta for over five hours on Friday, came to know that the organisers had issued 150 ground access cards for Saturday's mega show.

"But due to pressure from the influential, such ground access passes were issued much in excess," said a source.

The over issuance of such passed led to a rush resulting in mismanagement on the ground, for which Lionel Messi got irritated and told his private security man to lead him out of the stadium.

According to protocol, no one was allowed to touch Lionel Messi, but many people came too close to him as well as his playmates Luis Suarez and Rodrigo De Paul.

The scheduled 90-minutes programme was cut short to less than 20 minutes.

Dutta reportedly told the SIT that he gave Lionel Messi Rs 89 crore and another Rs 11 crore was given to the income tax.

He said the funds were procured from different sponsors, including financiers.

Sources said the SIT after examining the seized documents approached Dutta's bank and advised for freezing of his account balance of Rs 22 crore.

Dutta was arrested on December 13, hours after chaos at the Messi event. As the chief organiser, he was held responsible for what police termed “serious lapses in planning and execution” that led to the mayhem at the stadium.

Police claimed that attendees were allegedly charged between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 30 lakh for each photograph taken with Lionel Messi, but no official payment records were found. These amounts are suspected to have been collected in cash and are being treated as unaccounted money.

The SIT has also flagged major discrepancies in ticketing. While the Yuva Bharati Stadium has a capacity of 66,000, organisers claimed only half the tickets were sold and the rest were distributed for free.

The four-member SIT, led by director of security Peeyush Pandey, and comprising additional director-general of police (law and order) Jawed Shamim, additional director-general of police (south Bengal) Supratim Sarkar and Barrackpore police commissioner Murlidhar, has taken over the cases related to the incidents at the stadium.

Four more members of the rank of deputy superintendent of police and inspectors have been inducted into the SIT.