The Tirumala police on Monday registered a case against three persons for allegedly cheating the pilgrims with fake ‘darshan’ tickets and extorting huge amounts.
According to Two town Inspector Chandrasekhar, a pilgrim K.P. Ravinarayan from Chennai had purchased 18 ‘abhishekam’ and 10 ‘suprabhatam’ tickets from Latik and Rahul at ₹73,000 through his relative Bharat and also had transferred the amount to their account online.
The fraud came into light on December 13 when the TTD vigilance sleuths had found that the ‘abhishekam’ tickets carried by Mr. Ravinarayan were fake and questioned him.
After narrating the happenings, Mr. Ravinarayan sought some time to verify the facts from his end and at last gave in writing recounting all the facts based on which the TTD vigilance personnel lodged a complaint with the local police on February 5.
The police after having repeatedly failed to establish contacts with all the three accused registered a case. They also appealed to the devotees not to fall prey to touts and middlemen and instead book their tickets on the TTD’s official website only.
