The Railway Protection Force (RPF) arrested nine travel agents during a crackdown and seized 593 tatkal tickets worth ₹9.58 lakh on Thursday.

The RPF booked cases against the owners of the travel agencies that were allegedly involved in booking tickets on IRCTC portal illegally and selling them away.

Modus operandi

According to Senior Divisional Security Commissioner Jitendra Srivastava, the agents allegedly registered themselves as retail service provider in the IRCTC website and they were entitled to generate tickets through the agent ID for customers by taking fixed amount of commission.

As per the IRCTC rules, they are barred from booking tickets AC tickets between 10 a.m. to 10.15 a.m. and sleeper class tickets from 11 a.m. to 11.15 a.m. by using their IDs.

“The agents were found to be operating the business through multiple fake IDs and generating tatkal tickets, as soon the tatkal server opens and then selling them at premium,” said Mr. Srivastava.

The RPF teams have unearthed 78 multiple users during the raids, which is categorised as offence under Section 143 of the Railway Act.

The accused have been identified as M. Venkata Rao of SKS Tours and Travels in Akkayyapalem; K. Kondala Rao of VL Travels, Seethammapeta; K.N. Raj Kumar of Sri Sai Chandra Solutions, Kurmannapalem; Y. Satish of SV Travels Duvvada, S.K. Dal Behara of Care Travels and Tours, Dabagardens; K.V. Rajesh Kumar of Sai Karthikeya Communications, Chinamusidiwada; M. Surya Narayana Murthy of Surya Sai Internet, Chinamusidiwada; V. Ganesh Kumar of Kavya Travels and Keethi Online Services, Rajam; and B. Jagadeswara Rao of Cyber Street Travels, Srikakulam.