A classmate of mine in college has been arrested by police for creating an app that auto-filled ticket booking webpages of @RailMinIndia . It didn't even auto-fill captchas and obviously payment happened to railways directly and yet he is being 1/

accused of creating 'fake app' and swindling money per police statements to media (who have written stories based on it as if it is the gospel truth). :-( Even mild innovation is a crime in India. This is the reality of @_DigitalIndia Indian govt keeps talking about.

He comes from a poor family and is the only earning member. This reeks of bad faith prosecution by railway police at the behest of ticket booking app competitors, who have deals with Railways & do handle money. A bright engineer & entrepreneur's life is being destroyed. :(

I'm deliberately not linking to media stories in TN media which call him scammer. I don't know what is the scam in allowing people to do on mobile what desktop browsers have been capable of doing for ages. come on @RailMinIndia tell your police to stop this farce.

Worse still they are calling in-app purchase as 'swindling' as if that money belongs to railways. In-app purchase happens in separate interface (like other apps). The app does not get money from user during booking (it is just auto-fill for IRCTC web page, no way to do that).

So user clearly knows that it is a paid app & are not paying hidden extra charge during booking or something. This is an atrociously stupid case.

Surprisingly ToI has a solid report on what the app actually does: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/iitian-creates-apps-for-fast-rly-booking-held/articleshow/78850749.cms including a bewildering statement by security chief of @GMSRailway. @anivar @logic @learning_pt @realitycheckind

"Southern Railway principal chief security commissioner Birendra Kumar said, “He created a software to book tickets faster and he was not even an authorised agent of IRCTC.”" Translated: How dare anyone help people enter details and press buttons faster in our stupid page?