Western Railway comes down heavily on touts during festive season

In view of the forthcoming festive season and the ensuing vacation rush in trains, Western Railway has formed Special Task Force consisting of Crime Branch Inspectors and dedicated staff from field units and has launched intensive drives against touting activities. These Anti-Tout Squad & Special Task Forces carried out raids at two travel agents and detected cases of unauthorized ticketing on high commission from the passengers.

Ravinder Bhakar, Chief Public Relations Officer of WR said that, during a special drive conducted on October 27 by Special Task Force along with the RPF staff at a travel agent namely Neelkanth Tour & Travels located at Grant Road, Mumbai, it was found that the party was carrying out the business of supply of railway reservation through 'e–tickets’ generated on personal ID and selling these tickets on high price to needful customers.

“During the raid, 85 e–tickets worth Rs 4 lakh and 219 used e-tickets valuing Rs. 7.81 lakhs were seized among other things. Also, three CPUs, three mobile phones, one visa card and a visiting card were seized. A case has been registered with RPF, Mumbai Central against the owner of Neelkanth Tour & Travels and after due formalities, the culprit along with seized property & items has been handed over to RPF,” added Bhakar.

On another such anti–tout drive on October 28, a surprise check was conducted at a travel agent ‘Karotara Travels’ located at Ghansoli, Navi Mumbai wherein the owner Gautam Lalji Karotara was found indulging in procuring illegal e-tickets from personal user IDs and sold it on high premium to needful customers. 192 live e–tickets worth Rs 4.88 lakh, 580 used e-tickets worth Rs 15.32 lakh, two laptops, one mobile phone, one printer, visiting card and booking registers were seized.