SALEM: In a major crackdown, Salem divisional railway manager (DRM), U. Subba Rao, came down on ‘ticket touting’, to curb ‘unscrupulous elements’ issuing unauthorized tickets including e-tickets, taking advantage of summer rush.
Codenamed ‘Operation Thunder’, on a single day on Friday, eight special teams of RPF under Salem division raided at least 30 persons including some browsing centres in Salem, Erode and Coimbatore, who were suspected to be indulging in procuring and selling of e-tickets unauthorized through the IRCTC ticketing portal.
An official release quoting Sri Subba Rao, said here on Friday that five persons have been arrested in connection with offences under section 143 of the Railways Act and 128 number e-tickets seized from them. The total value of those illegally manipulated tickets was given as Rs 1,30,125.40.
Stating that a list of authorized agents can be found in the Railway time table as well as online, he said, all others who claim to book tickets for a charge are actually touts. As touts do not use valid mobile numbers of customers, victims do not receive messages of tickets getting cancelled, as all tickets “booked through fraudulent numbers” get cancelled.
Urging the people not to buy tickets from touts posing as agents, Mr Subba Rao said such agents use “bogus IRCTC personal IDs’ to book tickets”. These tickets were then sold at a premium of Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 extra per ticket. Sri Subba Rao and other officials congratulated work done by the security and commercial team of Salem division.
