Western Railway has been conducting special drives and raids against touts, luring innocent passengers and charging exorbitant illegal commissions. Taking intensive action against touts, special drives have been regularly conducted by Western Railway’s Railway Protection Force (RPF) in all six Divisions. This has resulted in the seizure of 47 cases of illegal touting of 183 E-tickets as well as journey-cum-reservation tickets worth approx. Rs. 5.93 lakhs in the month of January 2023.
According to a press release issued by Shri Sumit Thakur – Chief Public Relations Officer of Western Railway, RPF WR formed special teams of dedicated staff from the Detective Wing of RPF Crime Branch, Cyber Cell and Divisions to launch special drives against touts. It was observed that touts were booking tickets using several fake identity cards, including some authorized IRCTC agents who used fake IDs and illegal software to issue tickets, thereby charging extra money from innocent passengers. In 2022, RPF WR arrested 747 accused of illegal touting and seized tickets worth approx. Rs. 32.64 Cr and detected 26 illegal software in 34 cases of E-tickets.
Shri Thakur added that recently, on a single day, seven different cases of illegal touting cases were detected across Western Railway’s Mumbai, Bhavnagar, Ratlam & Ahmedabad Divisions. Out of these 7 cases, 143 live railway reserved E-ticket worth approx Rs. 2.33 lakh, 314 used E-tickets worth about Rs. 3.91 lakh, 10 used Journey cum Reservation tickets worth about Rs. 15 thousand and several mobile phones/laptops were seized from all the seven suspects which were used to book these tickets illegally. Case under Section 143 of Railways Act have been registered against all the suspects.
Shri Thakur further stated that apart from such regular drives for arrest and prosecution of touts, RPF WR has also conducted several awareness campaigns for sensitizing the public to discourage purchasing tickets through illegal touts. The campaign also aimed to educate passengers regarding the legal provisions of Section 143 of the Railways Act and the consequences of buying tickets/e-tickets from touts.
