Title - Police nab three for black-marketing of railway tickets

Three persons, including two travel agents, who allegedly charged six times the value of train tickets for a confirmed berth, have been arrested by the Delhi Police Crime Branch. The police claim to have seized from them 143 sleeper class railway tickets issued for various destinations, names and age groups.Investigations were taken up a few days ago after the police received a tip-off about the gang operating at New Delhi railway station. Through a decoy customer they struck a deal with one of the suspects who took Rs.1,500 for a ticket from New Delhi to Lucknow, which originally costs Rs.232. Subsequently the accused named Deenu (22), a resident of Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, was arrested. The police allegedly seized 18 other train tickets from him.During interrogation, the accused disclosed that he worked as a commission agent for two travel agencies, Rattan Tour and Travels and Krishna Tour and Travels, both located in Paharganj. At his instance, the police arrested owners of the agencies, Vijay Majumdar (42) and Vijay Kumar (37). “In all, 62 tickets were seized from Vijay Majumdar and 50 from the other. Thirteen more tickets were found. The accused would procure mostly sleeper class tickets as no identity proof is required by the passengers while travelling in that class. Most tickets have been obtained for single passengers, whereas some are for two passengers, one male and one female,” said a police officer.

The accused disclosed that they would book tickets during peak seasons and popular destinations for making maximum profit. “The favoured destinations are Bandra, Patna, Bangalore, Mehrajganj, Kanpur, Lucknow, Chennai and Trivandrum,” said the officer.