Coimbatore : Salem Railway Division has arrested five persons on charges of ticket touting and seized 128 e-tickets valued at Rs.1.30 lakh form them

Three arrests were made in Coimbatore and one each in Erode and Salem during a special drive, “operation thunder’, yesterday, as directed by Divisional Railway Manager dU Subba Rao, a release from the division said today.

During summer holidays a large number of passengers travel by trains, thereby increasing demands of reserved accommodations in trains manifold and touting agents take advantage by unauthorisedly procuring and selling the tickets.

To ensure fairness and to curb touting activities of unscrupulous elements, it was decided to launch a simultaneous special drives throughout Indian Railway under Sec 143 of Railway Act-1989 against ticket touting (including e-ticket) in coordination with Commercial and Vigilance department on a single day.

Eight special teams of RPF were formed and raids were conducted against 30 persons’ user ID’s suspected to be used in procuring and selling of e-tickets unauthorisedly through IRCTC ticketing portal.

Such e-tickets were sold at a premium ranging from Rs. 500 to Rs.1,000 per ticket.