Title - Lid off rail ticket racket, 1 held

NEW DELHI: The vigilance cell of Northern Railway claimed to have cracked a major ticketing racket on Wednesday with the arrest of a man who was allegedly using a fake medical certificate to get concessional and free tickets. He was operating from Govindpuri in south Delhi, senior officials in the railway vigilance cell confirmed. Railways offer free tickets to patients suffering from diseases such as cancer, haemophilia, non-infectious leprosy, TB and mental illnesses and up to 75 percent concession on the ticket for person accompanying him or her. "The agent has been convicted by the special railway magistrate and sent to judicial custody of 14 days. The Railway Police Force and vigilance cell are conducting further investigations to find the doctors, hospitals and other officials involved in the racket," said a Northern Railway official. He said that the accused was caught red-handed when a decoy team from the railway's vigilance department raided his office following a tip-off that he was booking concessional tickets through forged cancer certificates procured by him.

The official said they got a tip-off about the ticketing racket when a few weeks ago when they seized a blank cancer patient certificate and other duly filled cancer patient certificates, signed by doctor with stamp on the same, from Tughlaqabad and Anand Vihar reservation offices. "Information was received that two passengers having confirmed reservation on concessional cancer certificate will travel in train no. 12556 Gorakhdham Express on February 26 in sleeper class from New Delhi to Gorakhpur. To check the veracity of the sourced information, a preventive check was conducted by the NR vigilance team on the train. The passengers failed to produce any document of being a cancer patient and informed that they have got the ticket booked after paying the full amount to a travel agent. They only provided us the visiting card of the agency in Govindpuri," he said.

The vigilance officials visited the agent posing as needy customers and paid Rs 500 in advance for booking two tickets to Patna in sleeper class. "The agent asked us to collect the ticket at 11 am on Tuesday after payment of a balance amount of Rs 730. We found that the ticket was prepared using fake cancer concession certificate. Thereafter, a raid was conducted on the agency with the help of RPF (Hazrat Nizamuddin) and Delhi Police (Govindpuri PS) and one more ticket booked on basis of cancer concession certificate was recovered from his office," an official who was on the raiding team said.