RPF intensifies drive against black-marketing of ticket
| Date :09-May-2019 |
Staff Reporter:
With peak travel season in full swing, Railway Protection Force (RPF) unit at South East Central Railway’s Nagpur Division intensified drive against cornering of tickets and its black-marketing by agents. In a co-ordinated drive, RPF teams cracked down at six places, four of them within Kamptee town on single day, to bust the rampant sale of tickets at inflated prices. Divisional Security Commandant, RPF, Ashutosh Pandey, had given the brief to force to ensure that misuse of facility on part of authorised ticket agents of IRCTC should be stopped.
Interacting with media on Friday, Pandey stated that their aim is to ensure that genuine travellers are not held ransom by such misuse of facility. We monitored the ticket sales and investigations revealed that fake IDs were purportedly used by the ticket agents to block the quota only to be misused later. At Kamptee first raid was conducted on M/s Hafiz Brothers at Ruiganj, G N Road, where the accused Sohail Shakeel Ansari (31) was using two IDs on which two live tickets were booked. Further investigations revealed that he had booked 17 tickets on same two IDs that is not permissible. Material used for booking tickets plus booked tickets were seized and its estimated cost Rs. 48,421.
Another raid was conducted on M/s Star Services run by Mohd. Afzal Mohd. Aslam Rabbani (32) near Ismailpura Mosque on Yerkheda Road. His computer revealed creation of seven IDs and 17 e-tickets were booked through it and its cost was Rs. 15,000. The RPF team also seized one mobile handset, laptop totaling Rs. 65,140 and accused was arrested. The third raid was on M/s Skynet Services run by Lucky alias Narendra Jaiswal (25) on Khaparkheda Road. He had created two IDs through which 13 e-tickets totaling Rs. 26,259 were booked that were seized. Along with it, a desktop costing Rs. 23,000 and printer and one mobile handset and some cash was also confiscated. Total seizure was of Rs. 93,689. The fourth raid was on Ms. Balaji Services run by Sanjay Chainani in Kathi Oli, Kamptee.
On checking the computer at Sanjay's office it was noticed that he had booked 16 e-ticket using six IDs and their cost was Rs. 25,000. A printer of Rs. 5,000, one mobile handset of Rs. 10,000 and cash of Rs. 5650 were also seized. Total cost of seized goods is pegged at Rs. 68,625. Further checks revealed that Sanjay had booked 43 e-tickets on the six Ids. While the above raids in Kamptee were carried out by a team led by Sub-Inspector Mohd. Mugusuddin, In-charge, RPF outpost at Kamptee along with Assistant Sub Inspector Mohan Lal, Head Constables Satish Ingle, Prakash Radheshyam and Arun Thorat, constables R S Bagderia, Subhash Adewar, C Rahangdale along with RPF Crime Branch Inspector Vikas Kumar, HC S S Shedam and constable Pradeep Gadve.
Two other raids were carried by respective RPF outpost at Gowarighat along with RPF team of Gondia station. Acting on tip off, the RPF team raided Ms/ Ma Bhagwati Computers run by Manish Thakur. He had booked 12 e-tickets without licence and was to sell them at inflated price. The cost of tickets was Rs. 5540 and RPF team also seized one computer, CPU, dongle and other assorted material totaling Rs 42,000. One more raid was conducted by RPF team of Bhandara outpost led by PSI B K Sing. PSI Jai Singh, PSI O C Shende and constables B Deshmukh and K Sawarkar in Bhandara city. A mobile shoppe M/s S S Services located near Muslim Library was known to be selling rail tickets. Checking the mobile handset revealed that he had three Tatkal tickets.