PATNA: The rail protection force (RPF) in Bihar's Patna on Wednesday arrested a person, identified as Shantanu Khandelwal, with a bundle of 2269 e-tickets booked frequently through a pirated software called 'red mirchi'.
The e-tickets, recovered by the RPF of East Central Railway (ECR) following surveillance against touting activities, were valued at Rs 45.80 lakh in fares.
This was the second seizure of a huge number of e-tickets booked through frequently created IDs for touting at exorbitant prices above the actual fares from the customers.
Ravindra Verma, Inspector General of ECR's RPF, said that the raiding team has also seized 2 monitors, 2 CPUs, 2 mobile phones and cash of Rs 1140 from the tour and travel agency named as Balaji.
"On further enquiry, Khandelwal disclosed that he has generated 2269 E-tickets through fraudulently created 93 fake personal IDs with the help of malicious software called the Red-Mirchi," Verma said.
Khandelwal has been using Red-Mirchi software for touting since 2017.
This is the second time both the touting of e-tickets and using the Red-Mirchi software for execution, have come under police purview. Two were arrested from a Patna-based tour and travels agency.
According to Verma, 94 touts were arrested in 2018 while more than 120 touts have been arrested in 2019 till November.
Verma said, "In a special drive recently conducted from October 26 to November 4 this year, 25 touts were arrested with e-tickets worth Rs 2 lakh that were fraudulently booked."