Railways Busts Illegal Ticketing Racket, Terror Financing Suspected

In one of its biggest crackdown on illegal ticketing in the railways, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) has arrested a software developer from Jharkhand in a racket which has links to Pakistan, Bangladesh and Dubai with suspected involvement in terror financing, a senior official said on Tuesday.

Ghulam Mustafa, 28, who was arrested from Bhubaneswar, has a team of programmers working for him. He started his career in 2015 touting counter tickets in Bengaluru and then graduated to e-tickets and illegal software, the RPF official said.

"For the last 10 days, the IB, Special Bureau, ED, NIA, Karnataka Police have interrogated Mustafa. Dimensions of money laundering and terror financing are suspected," Railway Protection Force (RPF) Director General Arun Kumar said at a press briefing.