7 travel agents in net for selling unauthorised tickets

In the first raid conducted at Sagar Travels outside Andheri Station,the CBI arrested the agency owner Gajendra Jain along with employees Pintu Kumar Verma,Rajesh Jain and Manish Kamdar. “We have recovered 188 unauthorised tickets amounting to over Rs 3.30 lakh and cash worth Rs 30,000. The agency was only authorised to sell e-tickets,but was selling regular and Tatkal tickets. We have also recovered blank letter-heads of an independent MLA from Amravati district and rubber stamps of railway officers including a senior official from the commercial department,” said CBI inspector A S Rao,who conducted the raid.

Some 819 filled reservation forms were also recovered from the agency,he added.

“A letter from an MLA helps secure berth in spite of being in the waiting list and so such letter-heads are misused. Enquiries would also be made with the MLA to ascertain on how did the letter-head reach the travel agent and what was the purpose behind giving blank letter-head to a travel agent,” Rao said.

In two other raids at Maharaja Travels and Srikrishna Travels in Malad,the CBI officials recovered similar unauthorised tickets and arrested three person from there.

“We have handed them to the Railway Protection Force (RPF) who would be probing more into the case,” a CBI official said.