A 44-year-old man has been arrested for illegally selling 972 tickets worth over ₹22 lakh.
The Railway Protection Force (RPF) arrested Jaiprakash Jaiswal and siezed 108 e-tickets worth ₹3.83 lakh during a joint-raid by the Central Railway (CR) RPF and the vigilance wings from CR and Western Railway (WR) on February 23 at Vasai.
The accused used to operate with an accomplice based out of Bhayander who had multiple IDs on the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) portal. A senior RPF official said that the accomplice known as Kamlesh, is currently absconding. Railway officials said the accused had a post-graduate degree in geography.
“We have found that 24 fake IDs were used for booking tickets. The matter is still under investigation,” Satish Menon, Inspector in-charge of RPF, Dadar, CR said. People should refrain from using touts as they stand to lose their money and the tickets if the tout is caught, he said.
“The vigilance team had received information from its sources that touting was occuring at a large scale in Vasai,” a senior railway official said. The accused used to pass on the details of his clients to the accomplice who would then book the tickets. The breakthrough came as the accused used the same shop to print these tickets, which led to the tip-off to railways officials. RPF officials said that they seem to have been running the racket for around three years.