43 more racketeers under STF scanner

LUCKNOW: At least 43 more people are part of the pan-India network of hi-tech criminals involved in selling confirmed Tatkal tickets at a premium.

They were bypassing security measures installed by the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) and doing multiple bookings of Tatkal tickets at a single click, said UP Special Task Force officials.

Two gang members, Suresh Kumar Maurya of Pratapgarh and Rakesh Kumar Gupta of Jaunpur, were arrested by the UP STF from Charbagh area of Lucknow on Monday. STF officials said initial probe ascertained that at least 43 other people were involved in the same network and operating from different places in the country.

STF ASP Triveni Singh said these people had been named as accused in the FIR lodged in the matter and efforts were on to trace them. They were using different variants of the same software to book multiple Tatkal tickets at a time bypassing the one-time password system. Moreover, the software also allowed the fraudsters to spoof phone Ids, he added.

He said Ajay Garg, one of the kingpins of this racket, used to work as assistant programmer for Central Bureau of Investigation and was arrested by the central agency in December 2017.

Garg allegedly was the main brain behind one such illicit software which subverted the railways’ reservation system, allowing the agents to book hundreds of Tatkal tickets at a single click of the mouse, he added.

The ticket bookings under Tatkal quota open at 10 am for AC class and 11 am for non-AC coaches for trains departing the next day. A fixed number of seats, in each coach, under the Tatkal quota, are sold at a premium by the railways to travellers who need tickets urgently. By using a particular software, the fraudsters used to book most of Tatkal tickets by the time passengers entered their details on the IRCTC website .