Western Railway flying squad conducts special ambush checks

Many incidences of passengers traveling on fake /coloured photocopy tickets in the case of Tatkal were reported. To curb this problem, Western Railway’s Flying Squad conducted special checks in specific trains that were reported of several cases of the same. These intensive ambush checks were done on 9th and 10th September, 2020.

According to a press release issued by WR CPRO Sumit Thakur, these incidences were noticed in the case of Tatkal booking of tickets of trains North and East originating. Under the aegis of Pervez Khan – Assistant Commercial Manager (Ticket Chekcing) the charts of the trains whose complaints were frequently received were scanned in depth. PNRs of tickets booked in Tatkal generated at PRS location of 500 kms and beyond the tickets/ passenger’s journey originating station were shortlisted. After a detailed groundwork, few trains and conducive sections of their run on Western Railway jurisdiction were identified for surprise ambush checks.

Two teams were made and surprise checks were conducted towards Nagda interchange and Jalgaon interchange for such trains. An intensive 48-hour check was conducted by the teams on 9th & 10th September, 2020 between Jalgaon- Surat- Vadodara- Ratlam section of Western Railway.

Thakur stated that during the check, the Flying Squad team detected 20 passengers in Avadh Express towards Mumbai who did not possess the Original Journey ticket. Since these tickets were generated at locations far away from the journey originating station, chances of their delivery was very small. These passengers were charged as “Without Ticket” and a total of Rs. 31,895/- as railway dues were collected in the last leg of their journey. Two other passengers were detected of traveling on tickets booked for different passenger (Transfer of Ticket) for which Rs. 2810/- were recovered as dues.

In another special check conducted on 30th August, 2020 in Train No. 02834 Howrah-Ahmedabad Special train, 19 passengers were found traveling on berths earmarked for Senior Citizens, though they were in underage bracket to qualify as Senior Citizens. These passengers had produced e-reservation slips with modified (higher than actual) age matching as per their identity cards they were holding. An amount of Rs. 28,240/- was recovered as railway dues.

Alok Kansal – General Manager of Western Railway has commended the good efforts of the Flying Squad. Western Railway has urged all rail users to buy proper rail ticket and co-operate with them.