Lucknow: Kingpin of multiple job recruitment gangs Arvind Rana, who was involved in leaking questing papers and using solvers in different government jobs recruitment examination for the past 15 years, was arrested by Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) in Meerut district on Thursday midnight.
The STF officials said Rana was wanted in multiple cases, including two lodged in connection with solvers’ racket in Lucknow and Meerut districts. Two other cases were registered in Delhi. They said he had been evading arrest for the past six years after his name surfaced as the kingpin of a major racket operational during Staff Selection Commission (SSC) examination in Lucknow on October 6, 2013. Ten people were arrested in this case.
They said the SSC’s examination was for recruitment of sub-inspectors in Delhi Police and Central Armed Police Forces, assistant sub-inspectors in Central Industrial Security Force and intelligence officer in Narcotics Control Bureau. They said it was suspected that Rana’s gang managed to get over 45 people to clear the examination in this attempt.
Sharing further details, inspector general (IG), STF, Amitabh Yash said Rana’s name also surfaced in the racket busted during UP police constables’ recruitment in June 2018. He said the accused had a widespread network across UP and Delhi through which he ran multiple job recruitment gangs. He said Rana simultaneously operated multiple gangs at a time and never shared the information of one gang’s operation with the other.
{{/usCountry}}Sharing further details, inspector general (IG), STF, Amitabh Yash said Rana’s name also surfaced in the racket busted during UP police constables’ recruitment in June 2018. He said the accused had a widespread network across UP and Delhi through which he ran multiple job recruitment gangs. He said Rana simultaneously operated multiple gangs at a time and never shared the information of one gang’s operation with the other.
{{/usCountry}}He said the STF was tracking Rana for long and arrested him from his hideout in Akshardham Colony in Meerut. He said the accused was presently planning to get his candidates recruited in Delhi’s fire services department.
Another STF official said Rana’s arch rival was his former accomplice Ankit Punia, who had established his separate gang in 2018. He said Punia had gradually wiped off Rana’s gang by offering more money to people working with the latter. He said Rana managed to reorganise his gang after Punia was arrested from Baghpat on April 16, 2019. Punia is a resident of Meerut and earlier worked in a multi-national company before joining the solvers’ gang operated by Rana.