A racket of accepting cash for army posts came to light here on Friday night with the arrest of three people and recovery of old question papers.
A soldier and an ex-serviceman are among the arrested three who are charged with collecting almost Rs. 2 lakh each from many candidates to get them into the army. Based on a prior input, a joint team of the police and military intelligence caught them at Namdev Chowk here.

"The documents seized include bank details, old question papers and the admit card of a candidate," said deputy superintendent of police Vibhore Sharma. "The suspects are army havildar Gurdeep Singh of Kairo village near Patti, ex-servicemen Baldev Singh of Fatehgarh Sabrao near Ferozepur, and Gurwinder Singh of Patti."

"During preliminary interrogation, the suspects have told the police that they took money from nearly 35 candidates and even got some into the army," said senior superintendent of police Varinder Pal Singh. "We had strong clues that a nexus was active and the suspects had done reconnaissance of the recruitment venue and lured candidates who cleared the physical test into their trap. Their sources in the army recruitment cell leaked these details to them."

More people in the army were part of the racket, said the SSP, adding that the police now would go after them. Army recruitment in the state is to begin on Sunday at Gurdaspur.