Varanasi: Four persons were booked after a racket of selling fake tickets for aarti in Shri Kashi Vishwanath Dham was unearthed in Varanasi on Thursday.
According to reports, the temple authorities were getting information about fake tickets being used for darshan and aartis in the temple for the past few days. Due to the sale of both online and offline tickets, it was difficult to catch the people involved in it.
The racket was exposed with joint efforts of the temple administration and police. The forgery was caught with the help of a security app developed by the IT experts of the temple administration. The information about this app was kept confidential and only the employee deputed at the gate was given permission to login to this security app. The speciality of this application is that once a ticket is scanned at one entrance, it will show the ticket as invalid at any other entrance of the KV Dham.
It was found that the same ticket was being used for entering at the same time at different entrances. In further investigation, it came to light that the tickets were edited and sold to the visitors by some touts and shopkeepers near the temple. With these fake tickets, the people were given entry inside the temple from different entrances.
On the instructions of the chief executive officer of the temple Sunil Verma, the helpdesk in-charge lodged a complaint at the Chowk police station against four persons including Shubham Pandey, resident of Khowa Gali, Arun Pandey, resident of Badi Patiya, Irfan Haider Sona Abbas Alam, resident of Shivala, and Shubham Adhikari, resident of Sonarpura.
The police are investigating the matter. The involvement of an outsourcing worker of the helpdesk is also being investigated. Besides, there is also a possibility of involvement of more touts and shopkeepers in this forgery. The divisional commissioner, police commissioner, district magistrate and other officials have also been informed about the matter. CEO Sunil Verma said that strict action is being taken against those involved in the forgery.
The CEO said that with the mobile app it can be found that whether the ticket is fake or genuine.” The tickets are now being checked with the mobile app scanner at all the entrances of the temple. When the tickets of 15 devotees, who had come to take part in Saptarshi Aarti, were checked, the bar code scanning started showing the tickets as invalid, he said.
According to reports, the temple authorities were getting information about fake tickets being used for darshan and aartis in the temple for the past few days. Due to the sale of both online and offline tickets, it was difficult to catch the people involved in it.
The racket was exposed with joint efforts of the temple administration and police. The forgery was caught with the help of a security app developed by the IT experts of the temple administration. The information about this app was kept confidential and only the employee deputed at the gate was given permission to login to this security app. The speciality of this application is that once a ticket is scanned at one entrance, it will show the ticket as invalid at any other entrance of the KV Dham.
It was found that the same ticket was being used for entering at the same time at different entrances. In further investigation, it came to light that the tickets were edited and sold to the visitors by some touts and shopkeepers near the temple. With these fake tickets, the people were given entry inside the temple from different entrances.
On the instructions of the chief executive officer of the temple Sunil Verma, the helpdesk in-charge lodged a complaint at the Chowk police station against four persons including Shubham Pandey, resident of Khowa Gali, Arun Pandey, resident of Badi Patiya, Irfan Haider Sona Abbas Alam, resident of Shivala, and Shubham Adhikari, resident of Sonarpura.
The police are investigating the matter. The involvement of an outsourcing worker of the helpdesk is also being investigated. Besides, there is also a possibility of involvement of more touts and shopkeepers in this forgery. The divisional commissioner, police commissioner, district magistrate and other officials have also been informed about the matter. CEO Sunil Verma said that strict action is being taken against those involved in the forgery.
The CEO said that with the mobile app it can be found that whether the ticket is fake or genuine.” The tickets are now being checked with the mobile app scanner at all the entrances of the temple. When the tickets of 15 devotees, who had come to take part in Saptarshi Aarti, were checked, the bar code scanning started showing the tickets as invalid, he said.