Hyderabad: Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel of South Central Railway (SCR) zone conducted daylong flash raids against e-touting (touting activity on the railway tickets booked through online) named as ‘‘Operation Thunder” on Thursday as per the directions of Director General, Railway Protection Force, New Delhi.
The raids were conducted at 20 different locations in the twin cities i.e. Hyderabad, Secunderabad as well as in other major towns such as Khammam, Vijayawada, Bhimavaram, Nellore, Guntur, Narasaraopet, Nanded and Aurangabad of SCR. In this operation, 122 live e-tickets and 774 used e-tickets totally 896 e-tickets worth Rs 11,66,355 booked by the touts on commission basis were seized and arrested 20 touts responsible for it. The different personal User IDs used for such bookings were identified in the raid. During the raids by RPF Teams, it was also detected that touts were using prohibited ANMS/Red Mirchi Software for fast booking of tatkal e-tickets.
Gajanan Mallya, SCR General Manager, appreciated the efforts of RPF in controlling the touting activity. He stated that Railways will initiate stringent action against erring travel agents. The General Manager appealed to all the rail users to purchase railway reservation tickets from authorized travel agents only and advised to travel with a valid journey ticket. (NSS)
