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Rajshahi ticket scalpers active for lack of vigilance

Staff Correspondent, Rajshahi
As holidaymakers started returning to the capital yesterday, ticket scalpers have become active in Rajshahi Railway Station area.
Although law enforcement agencies said they were monitoring ticket sales, commuters alleged they found a lack of vigilance by the authorities.
The station's booking counters and online ticketing service ran out of tickets before Eid, but the scalpers -- well-known faces in the locality - are still selling tickets secretly.
They are selling theTk 375 Shovon chair tickets at Tk 800, Tk 570 Snigdha AC chair tickets at Tk 1,200, and Tk 1,070 AC berth tickets at Tk 2,000.
Ticket-seekers said they witnessed a close supervision of ticket sales last year, but alleged that authorities were not vigilant enough regarding black marketing of train tickets this year.
Aynal Haque, a businessman from Horogram area, bought two Shovon chair tickets for Banalata Express from a scalper yesterday.
Each ticket cost him Tk 800 and he saw four others buying five Shovon tickets for different Dhaka-bound trains from the same scalper.
Aynal said he purchased the tickets for his daughter and son-in-law who were visiting his family on the occasion of Eid.
"I had been trying to buy the tickets
since two days before Eid. The booking counters at the station and online service reported non-availability of the tickets but we desperately needed them," he said.
"I tried my luck at different stalls of the station and asked them directly who sells tickets in the black market. One of them took me to an individual who gave me the tickets, asking me to wait at the station for half an hour," he said.
"Buying tickets from scalpers is easy," he said while looking at the long queue in front of the booking counters where most people were waiting for hours and returning empty-handed.
"Almost everyone at the station knows the scalpers. But they would let you wait and run across the station to be certain that you're not a member of law enforcement agencies," Aynal said.
Contacted, the additional general manager of Bangladesh Railway's west zone, Ashim Talukder, said the railway authorities this year sent letters to law enforcement and intelligence agencies, asking them to be vigilant and report irregularities.
"We haven't yet received any bad reports," he said.
When notified of Aynal Haque's experience, he said, they witnessed some locals collecting tickets in different queues and suspected they might be engaged in ticket scalping.
"Being a civil authority, how can we challenge someone for just buying tickets?" he said.
When contacted, Rab ASP Anwar Hossain said the elite forces were monitoring the situation but did not "find anything wrong".
Rajshahi Metropolitan Police's additional deputy commissioner Golam Ruhu) Kuddus came up with similar observation.