KARUR: A special team of Railway Protection Force (RPF) officers arrested five persons and produced them in Karur District Court on Tuesday for illegal train ticket bookings using fake accounts on the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website.
With a lot of restrictions imposed by the railway board on bookings through IRCTC, many people turn to travel agents and e-ticket booking centres for tickets.
Many internet browsing centres and travel agents have started creating fake and IRCTC user IDs to book tickets illegally instead of using agent IDs. These tickets are then sold with a huge mark-up. After Southern Railway received complaints about the spike in bulk booking of tickets using individual user IDs on the IRCTC website, the Principal Chief Security Commissioner (CSC) and the Chennai CSC ordered the RPF in Karur to conduct a probe.
Based on orders from Salem Divisional Security Commissioner Sivasankaran, a special team led by Karur RPF Sub-Inspector Gunasekaran was formed to investigate and nab the culprits.
The team inspected browsing centres and investigated travel agents in Karur, Namakkal, Rasipuram, Thiruchengodu, Kumarapalayam, Elachipalayam and Dindugal, among other locations.
The team found a majority of tickets were illegally booked using individual IRCTC user IDs.
Buying and selling of these tickets is an offence under Section 143 (1) (a) of the Railways Act 1989.
Five men from Karur, Namakkal and Rasipuram were arrested by the team. A total of 280 tickets worth Rs 4,29,491 were booked illegally by the group. All the accused have been remanded in custody for 15 days and a fine of Rs10,000 imposed on each.
Speaking to TNIE, Gunasekaran said, “Both buying and selling tickets booked using IRCTC consumer IDs is a serious offence. People who are unaware of this buy these tickets from browsing and ticket centres without knowing the consequences. Passengers travelling with such tickets would be deboarded from the
train and the tickets cancelled on the spot. We had caught similar cases in the past.”