Touts providing pre-booked tickets on the basis of forged cards to customers.

Mumbai: The railway police have taken under its scanner, touts who are providing pre-booked long-distance train tickets on the basis of forged Aadhar cards to customers at double the price. On being approached by a customer, the tout sells him a ticket booked in somebody else’s name along with a forged Aadhar card. The police stumbled upon the racket after they arrested a tout recently and recovered dozens of fabricated Aadhar cards from him.

According to the police, touts learnt to make fake Aadhar cards through an instructional video available online, titled, ‘How To Make Fake Aadhar Card From Mobile Phone In Just 2 Minutes!!’. In the last three odd months, this video has proved to be a rage among the touts.

The Railway Police Force (RPF), who cracked down on the racket, had no clue that tickets were being sold in this manner to desperate passengers, till one of them was caught red handed by an alert ticket checker on May 24. Miraaj Khan, the tout, was brought in for questioning after the RPF realised that the ID accompanying the tickets did not look authentic.

CR, senior divisional security commissioner (Sr DSC) Sachin Bhalode said that it was only after questioning Khan, who owns a agency through which ticket booking are officially outsourced at a 12 per cent commission, did they realised that it was a Aadhar cards scam too. “Khan would book the ticket under random names at the counter, and then he would sell it to a passenger along with the fake Aadhar card.”

The RPF is now on a high alert and is keeping a close watch on other touts. “Right now we are identifying touts who might be using the same modus operandi,” he said.

The RPF has been trying to clamp down on illegal touts in the market. One of the other major rackets of touts includes use of software that speeds up the booking after a passenger logs onto the Indian Railway Tourism & Catering (IRCTC) website. What it means is that, once the booking starts at 8 am every morning, the software helps the passenger gain an unfair advantage by becoming fourth in queue for booking a ticket of his choice.