CHENNAI: All he tried to do once was help a friend book train tickets for a premium. Finding potential business opportunities in the trade, he exploited it to make a decent living out of it. However, his modus-operandi didn’t last for long, as he was picked up by the Railway Protection Force on Monday. He is now cooling his heels in jail.Narbath Singh of Sowcarpet is not the first person in this trade. Touts have spread their business far and wide handing out ‘confirmed’ railway tickets to travellers in exchange for a premium. Narbath only booked tatkal tickets for his ‘clients’, many of whom were his friends, police said. It all began when this 32-year-old man’s business as a pawn broker went bust. He took up unauthorised booking of railway tickets for his friends for a premium. This later turned into a full-time profession for him. RPF sources said Narbath, a native of Rajasthan, had settled down in Chennai at least a decade ago. He worked as a pawn broker and enjoyed good success and income. But recently, his business sustained heavy losses, which forced him to shut shop.“With his fortunes coming down, the pawnbroker’s friends began teasing him and kept assigning petty jobs. In one such instance last year, he was asked to book tatkal train tickets for which a commission of Rs 300 for every confirmed ticket was paid to him,” an official said. Through this ‘trade’, he was earning anywhere between Rs 40, 000 and Rs 60, 000 every month, the official said. According to sources, Singh visited various computerised passenger reservation system centres in the city such as Chennai Beach, Moore Market Complex, Mambalam and Tambaram to book tatkal tickets. In a bid to avoid the attention of the security forces at the reservation centres, he would alternate between the different centres.Interestingly, the tout was also employed in a textile showroom for a monthly salary of Rs 8,000 three months ago, which helped him continue with a luxurious life. But the honeymoon came to an end on Monday when he was intercepted by the Mambalam RPF men on suspicion. A team led by Mambalam RPF Sub Inspector S Maharaja, under directions from the Senior Divisional Security Commissioner, Chennai Division, S R Gandhi, made the arrest. Singh was in possession of train tickets worth Rs 7,350 when he was arrested, an official said. He was booked under section 143 (1)(b) — Purchasing or selling or attempting to purchase or sell tickets with a view to carrying on any such business either by himself or by any other person — and was produced before the Special Railway Magistrate. He was remanded to judicial custody and sent to the Puzhal jail.
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