A trio involved in fleecing tourists through black marketing safari permits at the Sasan Gir Jungle and Devaliya Park have been apprehended by the Gujarat Police. The accused would pull off mass booking of slots and then sell them at higher rates. The accused – Alpeshkumar Mansukhlal Bhalani, who runs a tours and travels company in Thaltej, Ahmedabad, Sultan Usman Baloch and Ajoj Nurmohammad Shaikh, both residents of Mendarda, Junagadh – were apprehended by the Cybercrime Centre of Excellence in Gandhinagar. The FIR, filed on October 10 at the State Cybercrime Cell on the basis of a complaint by the Deputy Conservator of Forests (DCF) of Sasan Gir, on behalf of the State, booked these several unknown persons under BNS section 112 (organised petty crime). According to police officials, the accused would visit the official website – girlion.gujarat.gov.in – and book several safari slots by keying in factual details of tourists who had mistakenly accessed their fake websites to obtain e-permits. The accused would then, at the verification step, upload random photos in place of Aadhar cards, which the website would accept. They used this loophole to their advantage and book slots for tourists, eventually charging them several times the amount prescribed by the State in a Government Resolution (GR) dated February 18, 2015. The police investigated data for advance bookings, confirmed between January 1, 2024, and December 31, 2025, with cooperation from website handlers Gujarat Informatics Private Limited (GIPL). They found the accused persons had booked a whopping 12,800 slots out of the total 83,000 bookings, amounting to 15% of the total permits. They allegedly sold the weekday permits at two-three times the price and weekend and holiday permits at a higher profit. The police found the black marketeering of permits was being carried out on at least nine different fake websites. Officials confirmed to The Indian Express that the scam had been carried on in two of the safaris – the Gir Jungle Safari and Devaliya Park Safari. Types of safaris and e-permits There are three steps in the booking process for the Gir Jungle Safari. The first is an e-permit for a slot, the second is hiring a vehicle and the third is hiring a guide. But the latter two are only done offline. So the only vulnerable point was the e-permit window, which the accused allegedly exploited. An e-permit for Gir Jungle Safari – open between October 16 and June 15 and with 180 slots on weekends and 150 slots on weekdays – can be obtained for up to six adults and one child under 13 years of age. The cost of this permit, at maximum capacity, is Rs 900 for Indians and Rs 8,200 for foreigners. On weekends and holidays, this shoots up to Rs 1,125 for Indians and Rs 10,250 for foreigners. The Devaliya Park Gypsy Safari is open throughout the year and has the same rates as the Gir Jungle Safari. However, for the Devaliya Park Bus Safari, the e-permit on weekdays is Rs 150 for Indians and Rs 3,280 for foreigners. On weekends, this goes up to Rs 190 for Indians and Rs 4,100 for foreigners. On the modus operandi of the accused persons for profiteering off the tourists, Detective Inspector ND Ingrodiya said, “These accused made up to nine fake websites for safari bookings with names close enough to the original to dupe tourists. So when tourists ‘booked’ the permits on these fake websites, they would have to feed their details into them. The accused would then use these factual details to carry out the bookings on the actual government website. However, they had found a loophole whereby any photo uploaded on the government website instead of the Aadhar card, would be accepted by it. This is how they acted as illegal middlemen in the booking process.” Having obtained twice or thrice the amount of money for e-permit booking from the tourists, the accused would give them the real e-permits in the form of PDF. This profiteering racket has allegedly been going on for a number of years. When asked if there were no secondary checks in place to verify the e-permit bookings, Ingrodiya said, “When the tourists actually reached the site for their safari, there would be agents of the accused already waiting for them, who would take the e-permits from them and arrange for the vehicle and guide bookings, which means that the actual tourists would hardly, if ever, interact with staff at the desk, which possibly let the racket go on this long.” Dr Ram Ratan Nala, the Conservator of Forests for Junagadh Wildlife Circle said, “I appeal to all prospective tourists to make sure they visit the correct website of the Gir Safaris ecosystem – girlion.gujarat.gov.in – so that they are not cheated and only pay the amount decided by the government.” How did the scam come to light? While the FIR was filed on October 10, officials realised something was wrong at the end of September and suspected mass booking by unknown entities. A senior Forest Department officer told The Indian Express, “The Deputy Conservator of Forests (DCF) in Sasan realised something was wrong between September 25-30, a period when a lot of mass bookings took place. We were alerted and we immediately blocked the booking website to stop this suspicious activity. We then informed the local police from where it was directed to the Cyber Centre of Excellence in Gandhinagar.”
