With Eid-ul-Azha approaching, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has launched a nationwide operation to tackle black market ticket sales, financial irregularities and passenger harassment at railway stations.

Beginning at 11:30 am on May 28, the ACC initiated a coordinated crackdown at eight key stations, including Kamalapur in Dhaka.

Md Akhtarul Islam, Deputy Director of Public Relations at the ACC, confirmed the move, saying the drive aims to bring an end to the illicit sale of train tickets. 

Special teams have been deployed to Kamalapur (Dhaka), Chattogram, Rangpur, Rajshahi, Mymensingh, Jamalpur, Sylhet and Dinajpur stations.

Online Rush for Tickets

The surge in demand for tickets has been intense. On May 26, when tickets for  June 5 were released for western-bound trains, the railway’s ticketing website saw 29.7 million hits within just 30 minutes. 

On the previous day, when tickets for eastern-bound intercity trains went on sale, the site received 19.4 million hits during the same period. 

Earlier that morning, sales for the western-bound trains also recorded 27.6 million hits.

According to Bangladesh Railway, 33,924 tickets were issued for trains departing on June 5: 16,576 for 24 eastern-bound trains and 17,348 for 21 western-bound trains. By 8:30 am, 14,581 of these had already been sold.

On June 4, 34,020 tickets were allocated: 16,576 for eastern routes and 17,444 for western destinations. 

By 2:30 pm, 31,547 had been sold. 

Across the Eid season, a total of 183,665 tickets have been allocated, with 62,258 sold as of Sunday afternoon.

From Dhaka alone, intercity trains offer a total of 33,315 seats. 

A further 47,000 tickets have been made available for commuter, mail, and local services, covering 23 eastern and 20 northern trains.

Questions Over Speed of Sales

Dr Md Mesbahuddin Sarkar, Professor at the Institute of Information Technology, Jahangirnagar University, raised questions about the speed of ticket sales. “We’ve heard of thousands of tickets being sold within two minutes. 

For that to be possible, an extremely high-speed server would be required -- something that’s questionable given our local infrastructure,” he said. 

He also pointed out that allegations of black-market activity have long surrounded holiday ticket sales.

ICT experts echoed his concerns, questioning whether local servers can support such rapid processing. 

Kamalapur Station Manager Sajedul Islam said, according to online platform shohoj.com, their system is capable of handling 30,000 ticket sales every five minutes.

“No matter how many hits the site gets, there’s a fixed number of seats — around 43,000 including standing tickets,” said Sajedul. 

“Hits don’t guarantee tickets," he added. 

When asked about the possibility of black-market activity, he said, “I joined on 30 April. Since then, I haven’t encountered any complaints or caught anyone involved in illegal ticket sales. We are monitoring the situation regularly.”

Public concern over ticket availability continues to grow as Eid travel demand peaks, with authorities now under pressure to ensure transparency and fairness in the distribution system.