Mumbai, Dec. 6 -- With cases of counterfeit train tickets and passes on the rise, Central Railway (CR) and Western Railway (WR) have decided to invoke criminal charges under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) that could lead to jail terms of five to seven years. The decision was taken on Friday after at least five cases of fake physical and digital tickets were reported in the last two months, officials said. Starting next week, CR and WR will conduct "fortress checkings", a large-scale ticket-checking operation where all entry/exit points of a railway station are sealed, and numerous ticket checkers (TCs) and Railway Protection Force (RPF) officers are deployed to catch ticketless travellers. Commuters will be asked to present valid ID proofs to verify that the credentials match the details on the ticket. "If the counterfeit tickets are caught, the railway officials have the right to book the offender under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, including 318(2) for cheating, 336(3) for forgery and cheating, 336(4) for harm to reputation, and 340(1) and 340(2) for forging electronic documents, which are non-bailable offences. Punishments for these offences include fines and imprisonment of up to seven years, or both," said a railway official, requesting anonymity. The methods for creating fake tickets have evolved over time, officials said. While some resort to basic photocopying, others use artificial intelligence (AI) and Photoshop. One of the five counterfeit ticket cases reported in the last two months involved a shopkeeper who bought a single ticket, then made photocopies and distributed them to his staff and colleagues. In another instance, a group of students edited a ticket using AI tools. The most recent incident occurred on Tuesday in an AC local, when a commuter pulled out his mobile to show what appeared to be an e-ticket purchased on the Indian Railways' UTS app. However, senior ticket checker Sai Prasad Sawant and his team cross-checked the UTS number on the ticket with the commuter's mobile and found that the UTS number was wrong. In another case, a physical season pass was tampered with-while the dates indicated a one-month validity, the period mentioned was quarterly. Officials said many of the fake season passes detected are for AC locals, where forgers charge commuters only about 25% of the actual fare. "We can identify the fake passes after inspecting and cross-checking a few parameters that are not known to passengers," said another railway official....