Ranchi: On December 2, a man in his forties walked up to a ticket counter at Hatia railway station in Ranchi. In his hand was a printed ticket from Hatia to Bengaluru in an express train, which he wanted to cancel and claim its refund amount. When the booking clerk keyed in the ticket's details into the system, suspicion struck him.
"Though the ticket seemed genuine at first, upon closer look it appeared that it did not have a PNR number. Instead, there was a roll number which was issued for unreserved tickets. He told the passenger that it was not possible and returned the ticket," a senior railway official said. Suspecting that something was amiss, the booking clerk informed his superiors. CCTV footage was checked and the man was identified. Then, a trap was laid.
After lying low for a few days, the man returned to the station again on Sunday evening and was wandering around the station premises. This time, cops from the Hatia GRP, accompanied by senior officials of the Ranchi railway division's commercial department, encircled him and began questioning. After futile attempts to mislead the officials, the man, later on identified as Vir Bahadur Saini, revealed a new modus operandi of conning innocent and unsuspecting passengers.
"Saini would purchase an unreserved ticket from a counter and take it to his rented room at a lodge in Birsa Chowk. There, he would use the computer and printers to edit the ticket and turn it into a long distance ticket of higher value. He would then sometimes sell it off to a passenger in need at the station or would simply try to get it cancelled and get a refund amount," Nishant Kumar, senior divisional commercial manager at Ranchi railway division, told TOI.
While the unreserved tickets were priced at Rs 40-50, the fake tickets had higher denominations, ranging between Rs 500-Rs 1,000 or above. "Saini would sell the ticket at Rs 500 or more and walk away with the money. A similar gang was busted in Bihar's Muzaffarpur last month," he added.