RPF conducted Nation Wide Raid on Railway E-Ticket Touts

On 2nd November’ 2018, simultaneous raids against e-ticket touting were conducted in more than 100 cities throughout the Indian Railways on ‘All India’ basis.

Acting on various sources, a detailed analysis of booking pattern of railway reserved e-tickets was done by the Security Directorate, Railway Board. RPF examined minutely various modus operandi being used by touting element to procure and sell e-tickets unauthorisedly through Personal User Ids.

Accordingly, out of more than total 5 crore users, a list of most suspected personal user IDs was prepared at Railway Board, New Delhi. This congenial list of suspected users were, then shared with Zonal Heads of RPF (IG-cum-PCSCs) through a secret communication to maintain element of surprise in the entire operation (Code Name – Operation Storm).

Detailed instructions of the Director General/RPF were also conveyed regarding thorough verification of credentials & activities of all suspects at ground level well in advance of the proposed raid.

Though, the investigation is still going, information received so far is as under:-

185 Touts, indulged in touting activities since long, arrested & prosecuted. During the nation-wide raid, maximum (40) touts were arrested over Western Railways followed by Eastern Railway (32).

1875 future journey e-tickets worth 35.68 lakh forfeited.

One illegal software was also detected in Mumbai.

1268 Personal User IDs, which were being used to carry out touting activities, sent to IRCTC for deactivating them immediately.

166 cases under section 143 of the Railways Act’ 1989 have been registered at various RPF Posts and taken up for investigation. Persons found involved in abetment of touting activities, will also be taken up appropriately as per extant legal provisions.

Keeping in view the ongoing festival season, a drive against touting element is already going on since 7th October’ 2018. During this drive (Upto 2nd November’2018), total 891 touts have so far been arrested with the recovery of future journey tickets worth Rs. 1.50 crore and total tickets worth Rs. 5.75 crore.