LAHORE The Pakistan Railways (PR) on Tuesday recovered four bags of bogus railway tickets from the trains scheduled for Karachi from Lahore Railway yard, Okara Station and two other cities during the checking prior to their departure. Sources disclosed that the PR authorities on a tip-off searched the trains and confiscated a large number of forged tickets worth millions of rupees. The recovered bags of fake tickets were booked for Rahim Yar Khan on a fake name, which could not be traced by the authorities despite investigating the matter. They also failed to trace the person to whom these bags were to be delivered. The sources informed that no committee had been constituted yet to probe the matter. The authorities are trying to conceal the incident as they have not got any case registered against any nominated or unidentified accused. They are avoiding taking the matter into the notice of the PR high-ups, the sources maintained. It has not happened for the first time. The mafia is doing this forged tickets business at will and never got traced, they remarked and confided that some Railways officials were also involved in printing and issuing of bogus tickets. These personnel are patronising the mafia in connivance with the ticket booking clerks, ticket checkers and rail guards, they added. The sources further said that the matter had been brought into the notice of the Railways finance departments authorities, who, taking the matter seriously, had questioned a number of loaders, workers and officials concerned. They are afraid of occurrence such incidents and have expressed apprehensions over involvement of PR employees in the notorious business causing huge financial loss to the Railways Department, which already had been facing financial crisis with a deficit of more than Rs 53 billion, the sources informed. A source in Railways finance department revealed that according to an estimate the Pakistan Railways was bearing not less than 45 per cent of loss of its total income every year due to the occurrence of such type of misappropriations and forgeries. He said that a mafia comprising some corrupt but influential Railways employees was involved and had been continuously looting and damaging the Department. He further said that the mafia was not only involved in selling of bogus train tickets, but also indulged in other crimes as stealing parts of bogies and expensive parts of locomotives. When contacted, PR General Manager Saeed Akhtar confirmed that Railways recovered forged train tickets worth over Rs 7-8 million from Lahore Railway Yard, Okara, Sahiwal and other railways stations. Recently some cases in this regard had been submitted in the concerned courts after registration of FIR against the accused after completion of inquiries, he maintained. He said that a number of officials of Pakistan Railways was found involved in such criminal activities, and cases had been registered against them, their accomplices and owners of printing presses as well. Inquiries of these cases are underway, he concluded.