Man held for illegally booking rail tickets

A man from Turbhe was arrested on Sunday for using 153 fake usernames to book tickets on the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website.

The Turbhe Railway Protection Force (RPF) have also recovered e-tickets worth ₹1.47 lakh, mostly to destinations in north India, from him. An RPF team led by inspector Lokesh Sagar raided the residence of Arjun Banwarilal Gupta (25) after he sold a ticket worth ₹2,000 for ₹3,500 to a fake customer sent by the RPF.

Mr. Gupta, who was arrested under Section 143 of the Railways Act, was produced in court on Monday.

According to Mr. Sagar, Mr. Gupta ran a general store called Jay Hanuman Communication on Faizer Road at Turbhe Naka. He would book flight, bus and train tickets online for his customers.“While the other bookings were done legally, he reserved railway tickets illegally. IRCTC allows a person to book only five tickets per month on the website. Anyone who wishes to book tickets as a business must get a licence from the IRCTC. Mr. Gupta instead made 153 usernames and booked several tickets. We have recovered around 52 such tickets from his shop,” Mr. Sagar said.

The police found that last month, Mr. Gupta booked 22 e-tickets worth ₹60,000 and 30 advance tickets worth ₹88,000.

“Most of the tickets were for Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which were in most demand. We suspect that he had been booking tickets illegally for one-and-a-half years and earned ₹400 to ₹500 extra on each ticket. We have seized the computer used in the crime and are investigating further,” Mr Sagar said.

Mr. Gupta lived with his parents and sister.