‘Raj Bhavan’ vs ‘Lok Bhavan’: The clue that cracked a train ticket scam

He began forging recommendation letters with fake letterheads, signatures and stamps, from senior railway officers, politicians, and the Governor’s office itself, to push through confirmed VVIP-quota bookings.

The scam ran quietly for months. Then, in February 2026, Central Railway officials flagged two suspicious reservation requests, for the LTT-Rajgir Express and the Chhapra Express, and forwarded them to Lok Bhavan for verification. The letters landed on the desk of a staffer at the Governor’s office who handles official travel bookings.

He took them to the ADC to the Governor, whose name and signature were on the documents. The ADC took one look and confirmed the letterhead, signature and stamp were all forged. Lok Bhavan alerted Central Railway, and the staffer filed a complaint with Malabar Hill police.

As police closed in, Thakkar tried an old trick.

Thakkar, a garment businessman from Ghatkopar, got into the ticket business after his own business collapsed during Covid. It started small and legitimate.

Using the alias “Vimal,” he approached officers and pointed them toward one of the people involved in the racket, without letting on that the man was his own brother. Police checked the lead and found the man, Sagar Thakkar, had genuinely been forging letterheads for the operation. They arrested him on July 27, unaware they’d picked up the mastermind’s brother on his own tip.

The plan fell apart during Sagar’s interrogation, when police found a photograph on his phone of the two brothers together. They showed it to co-accused Vinay Rawat, who immediately identified the man in the photo as Amrish Thakkar, his boss and the “mastermind”. Police launched a manhunt and caught up with Thakkar on July 28, just before he could flee to his hometown.

This wasn’t the first time Thakkar had tried to buy himself time this way, police said. In a similar case at Mumbai Central in February 2026, also involving forged Divisional Railway Manager letterheads, he had tipped off police about one of his accomplices, who was arrested in his place.

What emerged from the arrests was bigger than one forged letter. Thakkar had allegedly built a network of over 200 agents spread across Mumbai, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, coordinating over Telegram with fake identities and burner numbers. Police recovered a database of more than 500 passengers who had allegedly benefited from the fraud, along with 12 phones, 16 SIM cards and 70 debit and credit cards. One key agent, tipped off about Thakkar’s arrest, fled the country and remains untraceable.

The forged letterheads came from Akash, an employee at a Fort stationery shop, allegedly paid Rs 10,000 a month for the job. Police arrested him too and seized 10 forged letterheads, some bearing the names of senior Central Railway officials. The fake seals were sourced from a separate shop in Bora Bazaar, whose owner has been served notice.

In total, seven people were arrested: Thakkar, his brother Sagar, and Tariq Khan, Deepak Kumar Yadav, Vinay Rawat, Shatrunjay Yadav (alias Mohan, alias Anup), and Akash. All seven were remanded to judicial custody on Monday. Police are now investigating whether more railway officials or agents were part of the wider conspiracy.