Eastern Railway has ordered an inquiry into a cheating racket operating on the Delhi-Howrah Rajdhani Express.

The order followed complaints by six passengers since August. The complainants claimed that their tickets were taken away by ?ticket examiners? and cancelled.

The railway suspects that members of a criminal gang are posing as ticket examiners to dupe passengers.

According to officials investigating the racket, Pijush Chakrabarty, a resident of Ashoknagar in North 24-Parganas, had filed the first complaint. ?I was travelling to Calcutta with my four brothers. A few minutes after the train left New Delhi station, the ticket examiner took away our tickets, indicating that he would return them soon,? Chakrabarty recounted.

?A different ticket examiner came to us around 15 minutes later and asked for our tickets. We told him that the first examiner had taken them away. He checked his register and informed us that our tickets had been cancelled and the money refunded, though we had neither asked for cancellation nor a refund,? Chakrabarty said. He and his brothers were allowed to continue the journey after paying a fine.

?We have refunded the amount that the Chakrabartys had paid as fine. They brought the matter to our attention. Since we have received similar complaints subsequently, we ordered an inquiry,? said Jayanta Mitra, chief commercial manager of the railway. Mitra is awaiting a report from the investigating team.

Probe officials said the investigation aims to verify whether railway officials are involved in the racket.

?The complaints suggest the involvement of railway officials. The reservation clerks are supposed to refund the money only after the original ticket is handed over,? explained a railway official.

?In some cases, the impostors operated on moving trains. This indicates that the refund was made even before the tickets were handed over to the reservation officials,? he pointed out.

?This is not possible without the involvement of reservation officials,? he asserted.