Fake e-tickets at IGI: Agencies on high alert

The growing instances of fake e-tickets being used to gain entry into the hyper-sensitive IGI Airport, with over two dozen such instances being reported this year, has caught the attention of security agencies. The agencies, including CISF and those mandated with bolstering anti-terror measures at the facility, have sought creation of some additional security features on the e-tickets generated by the airlines and installation of some smart scanners at the entry gates that could weed out fake ones easily.

Sleuths recently flagged this issue during a high-level meeting on aviation security and informed the Union home and civil aviation ministries that while there were only a total of 23 such incidents reported in the whole of last year at the IGI, this year by September these numbers have gone to over two dozen, even with three more months still remaining in 2016.

A senior official said while till now all such cases have been categorised as “non-terror” or “general” attempts, the misuse of fake e-tickets for perpetrating any nefarious design cannot be ruled out at the IGI, one of the busiest airports in the country with a host of national and international dignitaries using it for air travel every day.

The official explained that a simple modus operandi involves a person first booking a ticket over the Internet to fly to a destination, subsequently taking its print out and then cancelling it.