RPF Team Cracks Down On Touts Involved In Illegal Train Ticket Business

Acting against touts involved in illegal train ticket business, a RPF team has cracked down on the touting menace and arrested six persons.

The team has also confiscated tickets worth Rs 43 lakhs.

The accused had software to create fake IP addresses used to bypass the restriction imposed on customers to obtain a limited number of tickets per IP address.

They sold disposable mobile numbers and disposable emails too which are used for OTP verification to create fake user IDs of IRCTC.

Catering to a nation with a population exceeding 1.3 billion, the passenger transport of Indian Railways faces very high demand for seats and berths.

The demand supply gap has widened over the years despite capacity augmentation by the Railways. This demand supply gap has led to mushrooming of many touts who use different means to corner reserved seats and then sell them to the needy on premium.

According to the Railways, use of illegal software for cornering confirmed railway reservations online had adversely affected the availability of confirmed tickets to the common man.

RPF has been undertaking intensive and sustained action in a mission mode under code name “Operation Uplabdh” against persons involved in touting (unauthorised carrying on of business of procuring and supply of railway tickets).

According to RPF, on the basis of pinpointed digital input supplemented by human intelligence, a dedicated team succeeded in nabbing Mannan Vaghela (Travel Agent) of Rajkot on 8 May 2022 who was using illegal software named as COVID-19 to corner railway tickets in bulk.

During interrogation, Giri spilled the beans and revealed the names of other associates and Admin/Developer Abhishekh Sharma of Vapi, who was also arrested on 20 July 2022.

Abhishekh Sharma confessed about having been the Admin of all these illegal softwares.

On the basis of leads provided by the arrested accused persons, three more accused persons, namely Aman Kumar Sharma, Virendra Gupta and Abhishekh Tiwari were arrested from Mumbai, Valsad (Gujarat) and Sultanpur (UP) respectively.

RPF is in search of a few more suspects involved in this case.

The accused persons were involved in development and sale of these illegal softwares using social media - Telegram, Whatsapp etc. along with providing fake virtual numbers and fake user IDs of IRCTC.

In the course of legal action against all these accused persons in this case, 1,688 tickets valued Rs 43,42,750 where journey could not be started, have been seized and forfeited.

In the past, they had procured and sold tickets worth Rs 28.14 crore earning huge commission. This shows the extent of generation of black money which could have funded other nefarious activities.

The inputs revealed by the accused are being examined threadbare by a team to plug the loopholes and take measures to stop such practice. This operation will continue in the future.

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