A crackdown by the Railway Protection Force on unauthorised ticketing agents who indulge in railway ticket manipulation, has brought to light a new form of the crime.
RPF sources said the hard disks seized from two ticketing agents from Greams Road showed special software was being used extensively in the manipulation.
These hard disks had been sent for forensic tests so that the types of software they used to ‘manipulate’ the tickets could be studied, the sources added.
According to these sources, there are around 1,500 authorised ticketing agents across the State, including 800 in Chennai.
However, there are scores of unauthorised agents: many of them are using the software to manipulate tickets.
“There are different methods of ticket manipulation adopted by the unauthorised agents. When they physically book tickets, they charge more money claiming they have to bribe the railway officials.
When they book the tickets online, they follow a different modus operandi , which involves the use of software,” said a railway source.
According to some RPF intelligence sources, the agents may book a ticket under the senior citizens quota to get a discount, but later, using software, they enter the original age of the customer in the booked ticket and give it to the customer.
“Sometimes, they book a ticket under the foreigners quota too,” they added.
If the fraud comes to light, it is the traveller who gets caught.
“Rarely does a travelling ticket examiner miss the age or quota; sometimes, he may cancel the ticket and ask the passengers to pay a fine and allow them to travel. Some of them do not allow the passengers to travel,” said Zahir Hussain, Tamil Nadu E-Ticket Agents Welfare Association. He said that despite repeated warnings by security agencies, unauthorised agents continued to indulge in this malpractice.
