RANCHI, June 21: The drive to contain blackmarketing of train tickets here has led to the arrest of four persons and the involvement of several State Congress leaders has come to light.

The drive was launched by the South Eastern Railway authorities on June 17. On June 19, S E Railway Commissioner Raja Ram said that Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee president Sarfaraz Ahmed and six of his colleagues -- State president of the Indian National Trade Union Congress Rajendra Singh, MLA Niranjan Paswan, Birendra Jaiswal, Pradeep Tulsyan, Bishwajeet Dey and Chanchal Chatterjee had ``tried to boss around'' to get one blackmarketeer, Nitin Kumar, released from the custody of Railway police.

Some of them even threatened agitation against the Railway administration if Kumar was not released soon, Raja Ram alleged in his Press statement on Thursday evening. Kumar, the proprietor of Sinha Travels, is the son of Congress leader Abha Sinha. He and three others -- Pawan Sarawgi, Sunil Pandey and Lalit Kumar -- were arrested by the Railway police and sent to jail on charges of illegal sale of train tickets under Sections 142 and 143 of the Indian Railway Act, 1989 on June 18-19.

During the course of interrogation, Kumar told the Railway Protection Force that he was ``patronised'' by Ahmed, Singh, Paswan, Jaiswal, Tulsyan, Dey and Chatterjee. None of these Congress leaders was available for comment.

In their defence, Congress worker Javed Ansari, considered loyal to the BPCC chief, alleged that the Railway police and the S E Railway Commissioner (Security) were thieves. ``They have been extorting money from the ticket agents. Now they are maligning the image of the Congress leaders.''

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.