The Special Task Force (STF), on Sunday, nabbed the kingpin of a gang which hacked the tatkal ticket system of the Indian Railways and sold tickets illegally.
He was identified as Saddam Hussain Ansari of Basti.
The STF team recovered 243 used tatkal tickets, two tatkal tickets for a journey in the days to come, a mobile phone, two laptops and other articles from him. He was arrested from Chhawani police station area of Basti.
The police were tipped-off that a gang was hacking the tatkal ticket system by using various softwares to get illegal access to it.
The police were also tipped-off that the gang sold these tickets to different agents who sold them to those travelling in urgency.
An STF team worked on the case and traced the location of the accused. He was later arrested.
The accused owned up his crime and disclosed that his gang was active in UP, Bihar, West Bengal, Haryana, Delhi and Punjab.
He also disclosed the modus operandi of the gang. As per his confession, the gang used to install different extensions in the laptop and then bypass the Captcha and used autoread the OTP needed at the time of online booking of a ticket within 60 seconds.
The police said booking of a tatkal ticket at the booking counter consumed 1:30 to 2:30 minutes. “By using the software, the gang members used to do the work in comparatively very small time and this way they hacked the system,” the police explained.