Textile trader held for multi-state railway ticket racket

Police said they had received a complaint from Lok Bhavan after officials were approached by the Indian Railways, saying letters signed by the ADC had been attached to tickets to get them confirmed under the VIP quota.

MUMBAI: A textile merchant from Dadar has been arrested for running a racket that used forged letters of politicians, senior railway officers and the governor’s aide-de-camp (ADC) to confirm railway tickets under the VIP quota. The Malabar Hill police said the accused had a network of more than 200 agents. A total of six arrests have been made so far.

Textile trader held for multi-state railway ticket racket

Police said they had received a complaint from Lok Bhavan after officials were approached by the Indian Railways, saying letters signed by the ADC had been attached to tickets to get them confirmed under the VIP quota.

When Lok Bhavan officials realised the letters had been forged, replicating the official letterhead, they approached the police. Investigations led them to four sub-agents and agents who forged letterheads to get railway tickets confirmed under the VIP quota. “We arrested Tariq Khan, 33, Deepak Kumar Yadav, 27, Vinay Rawat, 24 and Shatrunjay Yadav alias Mohan alias Anup, 34,” said a police officer.

Further investigations led police to arrest Amrish Ishwarlal Thakkar, 41, a resident of Ghatkopar, the main accused in the racket, and his younger brother Sagar, 32. “Sagar helped his brother forge the letterheads of political leaders, railway officers and Lok Bhavan to get tickets confirmed under the VIP quota,” said deputy commissioner of police, R Ragasudha, Zone III.

“A team under senior police inspector Bhaskar Gorve learnt that Amrish had a wholesale textile business in Dadar but ran the railway ticket racket for the money it brought in. He has been doing it for three to four years,” said the police officer.

Thakkar has cases registered against him by the Government Railway Police (GRP) in Kurla as well as Mumbai Central, for forging the divisional railway manager’s letterhead to get tickets confirmed, said the officer. The money charged by the racketeers varied with the client and the urgency of the request, said the officer, adding that the sum could even double the cost of the ticket.

“Thakkar had more than 200 people working with him. His network extends across the Mumbai, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh divisions of the Western Railway. Our teams have seized 12 mobile phones, 16 SIM cards, 70 credit/debit cards, and the data of more than 400 people whose tickets were confirmed by Thakkar and his associates,” said police inspector Digambar Bidwe investigating the case.

The accused have been booked for cheating, forgery, forgery of public records, forged documents or electronic records, using a forged record as genuine and impersonating a public servant of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.