The Hindu : New Delhi News : Army recruitment racket unearthed; four arrested

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 29, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Army recruitment racket unearthed; four arrested

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, JUNE 28. Four persons suspected to have got hundreds of people recruited into the Army and para-military forces on forged domicile certificate, ration cards and other documents, have been arrested by the Special Staff of the South-West Delhi police. Rubber stamps of senior government functionaries, filled/blank domicile and caste certificates, forged ration cards and other documents have allegedly been recovered from them.

According to the Deputy Commissioner of Police (South-West Delhi), Deependra Pathak, the Special Staff was tipped off that a gang engaged in fake recruitments in the Army was operating here. A team comprising Sub-Inspectors Rajkumar, Ravinder Tyagi and others took up the probe and zeroed in on a suspect, Vijay, who was allegedly operating as a tout in the Rampura Deputy Commissioner office complex in North Delhi.

The police found out that Vijay and his accomplices, Rattan Singh, Shakti and Sanjay Dabas were presently providing forged documents particularly to those applying at the Independent Recruitment office of Gopi Nath Bazar in Delhi Cantonment, where direct recruitments as Tradesman for the Technical Trade, the Medical Corps and as Ground Duty Staff are done every month. On June 25, the police was again tipped off about Vijay's movement around the Gopi Nath Bazar office, where recruitments were on since June 22. In order to trap him, the police sent a decoy to strike a deal for a domicile and a caste certificate, for which he demanded Rs. 5,000 and asked him to receive the documents near a petrol pump.

Around 7 p.m., Vijay arrived in his car and handed over the papers to the decoy, after which he and his accomplice, Rattan Singh, were arrested. During interrogation, they disclosed that they were active for the past 18 months and charged Rs. 80,000 for a confirmed seat in the armed forces.

Vijay disclosed that he prepared papers with the help of Sanjay, Shakti and others, while Rattan Singh arranged candidates from neighbouring Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh. He further revealed that he would pay around Rs. 3,000 to some staff members of the Rampura SDM office for each caste/domicile certificate, after which they would procure secret verification forms from that office, attach forged police verification reports and then return them to be sent to the recruiting authority, confirming that the candidates were genuine.

In a startling revelation, Vijay disclosed that he had distributed over 100 forged documents to touts and candidates appearing for open recruitment through the Gopi Nath Bazar office from June 22 to June 25. Earlier, he had provided documents to candidates for recruitment in the Border Security Force at Chhawla this month.

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