Bhubaneswar: In yet another crackdown against online fraud, the City’s Railway Protection Force (RPF) arrested an agent who had created around 10 personal accounts to book tickets from the IRCTC website.
The accused, identified as Sibo Narayan Choudhury, was taken into custody here, March 5. The arrest was made during a decoy checking for unauthorised business by the RPF.
On March 3, constable NB Rao of RPF Bhubaneswar, during the course of checking one SN Travels at Goutam Nagar near Kalpana Square, bought a Tatkal e-ticket to Vishakhapatnam. The agent used his personal ID to generate the ticket and also charged NB Rao an extra Rs 150 as commission. On March 5, the shop was raided by RPF where Choudhury failed to produce any legal documents supporting his procurement and selling of the ticket generated for Constable Rao.
The railway police retrieved 47 tickets for different trains worth Rs 82,415 from the accused and seized his mobile phone. The accused was an authorised IRCTC agent who had been misusing the e-ticketing system of the railways for a long time.
“An IRCTC agent can book limited tickets, but Choudhury was misusing his personal accounts to commercially book tickets for others. We have booked him under Section 143 of the Railway Act (penalty for unauthorised carrying on of business of procuring and supplying of railway tickets),” said sources at RPF Bhubaneswar.