TIRUCHY: Cracking down on e-ticketing touts, Southern Railway’s cyber cell over a period of three years till January 2023 registered 595 cases of illegal booking of railway tickets using fake IDs and unauthorised software, and seized tickets valuing to Rs 4.46 crore.
The cell helmed by the Railway Protection Force (RPF) which was constituted on May 20, 2019 has also seized several illegal software that were used by the touts for booking tickets in trains passing through Tamil Nadu, Kerala and other states.
While the numbers for the cases registered and ticket seizure in 2019 could not be accessed, the cyber cell over the period from January 2020 to January 2023 registered 595 cases after real-time monitoring of social media platforms and ticket bookings. This includes those against four ‘super sellers’ who were arrested in January alone this year. A super seller is a tout who has illegally booked at least 50,000 train tickets. Four other super sellers were arrested in 2020, 39 in 2021 and 33 in 2022.
Sources pointed out that one of the top super sellers caught by the Tiruchy special team of the cell a few months ago alone had illegally booked 1,25,560 tickets, valued at over Rs 56 lakh. Senior officials said that many of the super sellers used illegal software bought via social media platforms. “Our teams had monitored their activities and caught many of them from various states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, West Bengal, Kolkata, Delhi, Assam and Bihar,” a senior railway official said.
“We are constantly monitoring e-ticket booking activities. All those caught for illegal booking were produced before courts. Their personal IDs and agent IDs were created using illegal software which we sent to the Internet Ticketing Anti Fraud (ITAF) team to block,” a senior RPF official said.
Sources said that the busting of such rackets has ensured increased availability of tickets to the public, especially during festivals and holiday season. “We regularly monitor social media to catch such offenders. Usually, we conduct special drives during major holidays to catch the criminals taking advantage of such seasonal rush. It has helped us bust many major rackets. Youngsters and others should not use such illegal software circulated on social media for booking tickets,” a cyber cell official said.
