Mumbai Crime: 17 arrested in ticket touting worth Rs 1 crore

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Following the festive season, a mega raid was conducted by the railway police officials at the central railway division. According to the sources, the Railway Protection Force, Crime investigation Bureau staff, RPF Anti tout squad and staff of various RPF post have made 16 tout cases and arrested at least 17 accused who were allegedly involved in ticket touting in a weeks time (from 26 October to 2nd of November). The Railway authority also found crore of rupees dead and alive tickets with them.

An officer said, "The raids are going in all over india at the same time. During the festival season people do not get reservation tickets easily and because of which they visit tout and the touts take advantage of that by over charging them for every tickets. At this time touts are nailed down by cops and arrested under touting act,"

As per the police, "On November 2, in a massive crack down on touting activities in railway reservation system a joint team comprising of CR vigilance, RPF Dadar Mumbai division and Anti touting Squad of Mumbai division was formed and on credible information a raid was conducted at Geet Travel Anand Nagar, Vasai and the team managed to recover 78 numbers of live e tickets valued at Rs 3,21,395 and 4331 nos of old and used e tickets which value Rs 86,81, 330 under 61 personal user IDs created in illegal manner using ANMS software and these were seized."

Same day on the basis of source information and data received from IRCTC a drive was conducted by Team RPF Turbhe led by Sub inspector Nandlal Yadav at Priyanka Mobile Shop situated at Kopari Gaon Vashi, and apprehended the Operator Pavan Vishwakarma for procuring and supplying of Rail Reservation e-Tickets unauthorisedly. 12 future journey e-Tickets worth 12381 rupees which were issued on different fake personal IDs were seized. As per data received from IRCTC, 30 old tickets worth 47600 rupees were also found. Meanwhile several other post also working on touting Manmad RPF noticed a suspected person at PRS (passenger reservation system) Manmad. A watch was kept on him and he was apprehended when he procured a reservation ticket. On enquiry he disclosed his name as Sohel Gafur Shaikh, (29), the police found two reservation tickets worth Rs 240 and Rs 105 booked for his clients from whom he charged 100-200 extra.

On the same day, the Solapur RPF conducted a raid on Shivmrut mobile recharge centre situated at Solapur and found evidence of black marketing of E- tickets by using 42 fake IDs. The team seized 21 live e-tickets and 18 Used tickets of fake IDs worth 15,862 rupees along with electronic gadgets used for the same, from the possession of computer operator Sanket Ashok Deshpande, 21. On the same day on the basis of a tip-off received from a source, raid was conducted at shop named "Ichha Internet Cafe" located at Jai Bhim Chouk, Nagpur along with local police. During the raid, the team examined the computer of the owner Samyak Dipak Kale (34) and recovered 14 live railway Reservation e-Tickets valued at Rs 14,284 rupees and 72 old tickets worth 1,29,769 rupees from the Computer system which were booked by using 07 personal and fake IDs. During the interrogation the owner stated that he booked railway reservation e-tickets through fake ID's and provided the same to needy customers charging them Rs 200-300 extra. All the 86 tickets valued 1,43,769 rupees were seized.

In Mumbai, On 26th of November the Dadar RPF with the help of other units conducted a joint raid at Mankhurd against a tout named Indrajeet Gupta (32) and found 44 live tickets amounting 2,12,867 rupees and 2042 old e-tickets amounting 57,68,995 rupees. On November 30, the same unit formed a decoy check and a raid was conducted by Sub inspector Vineet Singh and team at shop No. 5, Pratham Holidays, Ranade road near Dadar (west) and the railway ticket tout named Mahesh Hirji Chheda, 31 was apprehended for unauthorised booking of railway e-tickets. 91 nos. of live railway e-tickets amounting to 2,17,010 rupees were found to be booked by him on various IDs.

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