They had booked rail tickets worth over Rs 40 lakh The Crime Intellgence Branch (CIB) of the Railway Protection Force (RPF),Pune,has arrested 80 touts and unauthorised ticketing agents in the last one-and-a-half year for illegally running businesses under the garb of tour operators,small shops and even medical stores. RPF officials said tickets worth more than Rs 40 lakh were illegally booked by them. Police sources said the arrests were just a tip of the iceberg and illegal activities still continue to flourish. Officers from RPF,under which over 580 kms of railway line in Pune,Satara and Kolhapur districts fall,say most of the arrested persons ran travel agencies and were illegally procuring tickets and selling them by charging anything between Rs 300 to 1,000 extra per ticket. A senior CBI officer said,It has been observed that these touts operate mostly for sleeper class tickets. As the reservations start 120 days before the date of the journey,the touts book tickets on the Internet or ticket counter with very common names such as A Kumar,B Kumar or P Kumari. As customers approach them,touts ask them to fake the names for the journey in the sleeper class. It has been observed that students who come to Pune from other states are their customers as they are ready to pay extra money. On Friday,a CIB team led by S-I Pavan Kumar arrested travel agent Mahesh Oza (37) from Ichalkaranji. Inspector Praveen Kasbe of CIB said,The arrested suspect had booked 40 tickets worth Rs 1 lakh. He has been arrested for black marketing of tickets. As Ichalkaranji does not have a railway station,he used to book tickets for businessmen with nearby stations as the starting point. The raid was done under the guidance of assistant security commissioner Vinod Kumar. RPF officials have appealed to passengers to get in touch with station masters of nearby railway stations if they get any information about suspected touts.
