In a drive before the Ganpati festival when railway tickets are more in demand, the Central Railway RPF conducted raids against touts over all the five divisions on August 22 under “Operation Thunder”. 23 touts were arrested with the seizure of 742 tickets valued about Rs 10 lakhs. These raids were simultaneously conducted over Mumbai, Pune, Solapur, Nagpur and Bhusaval divisions. The arrested accused were produced before the concerned court of law which has remanded them to judicial custody.

The raids under "Operation Thunder" was conducted under the supervision of Principal Chief Security Commissioner, RPF and planned in view of forthcoming Ganesh Utsav. Principal Chief Security Commissioner said that the raids will continue next week also to ensure that the reserved tickets are available to the general public.