Two held for black marketing Kedarnath helicopter tickets in Uttarakhand

May 31, 2025

RUDRAPRAYAG: Two people have been arrested in Uttarakhand's Pauri district for allegedly black marketing of helicopter tickets for Kedarnath, police said.

Rudraprayag SP Akshay Prahlad Konde said the matter came to the fore while investigating a complaint by a devotee from Madhya Pradesh.

Himanshu Rai Agarwal, who came to visit Kedarnath from Bhopal, had lodged a complaint of fraud in the name of helicopter ticket in Guptkashi police station on May 18.

In his complaint, Agarwal alleged that through one of his acquaintances, he contacted two people from Srinagar, Garhwal and bought helicopter tickets for Kedarnath Yatra, the SP said.

They took Rs 50,000 from Agarwal for two tickets and gave him a fake Aadhar Card, having someone else's name but his photo, and tickets and asked him to travel with the given documents, the officer said.

Acting on this complaint, a case was registered and action was initiated and Vasudev Kalra, a resident of Srinagar Garhwal and his associate Amit Nautiyal, a resident of Srikot Ganganali, were arrested.

Konde said that there are two types of frauds being committed in the Kedarnath helicopter service, the main ones being cyber fraud and black marketing of tickets.

Last year more than 650 complaints of cyber fraud related to helicopter tickets were received and this year so far 12-13 such complaints have been lodged, the SP said.

The police officer said that these criminals first take tickets in someone else's name and then sell them to someone else at a higher price.

Konde said that effective action is being taken to prevent incidents of fraud and black marketing related to Kedarnath helicopter service tickets.