Government job racket: One held in Satara

During an investigation, police unearthed that the victim’s money was deposited into Sakpal’s account. “Based on that, he was arrested,” said a police officer.

Mumbai: A 52-year-old man was arrested from Satara district for allegedly running a fake job racket along with four associates. The accused duped 13 people of ₹1.56 crore after promising them jobs in the Indian railways and post offices. They even handed bogus appointment letters and sent them to Chennai for training.

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The accused – identified as Shantaram Vitthal Sakpal – was in the real estate business and a native of Satara. During an investigation, police unearthed that the victim’s money was deposited into Sakpal’s account. “Based on that, he was arrested,” said a police officer.

As per the police, the complainant, Harishchandra Kadam, 32, a resident of Chunabhatti, lost his father in 2013, who was employed with Mumbai Port Trust. After he failed to get his father’s job on compassionate grounds, he approached advocate Shivaji Ghanage, a friend of one of his relatives, and paid him ₹2 lakh, Kadam said in his complaint filed at MRA Marg police station. As Ghanage could not get him a job in the port trust, he returned the money to Kadam, he said.

A few months later, Ghanage told Kadam that he had met some people who could offer him a job in the railways, but he would have to pay for it. Since the victim was desperately looking for a government job, he gave ₹28 lakh to Ghanage for him and his nephew’s jobs. Ghanage said that he had met those people and handed them the money, but the victims never got the jobs. The victim sold his agricultural land, mortgaged his home, and took a loan to arrange the money.

Apart from Kadam, 12 other job aspirants had given money to Ghanage. They are from Osmanabad, Satara, Latur and other regions of western Maharashtra and are known to each other, police officers said. The complainant claimed that the accused accepted the money from the mediator, Ghanage, near the exit gate of the General Post Office in Mumbai.

“Later, the four gave the victims a PDF form to fill out. The job aspirants were then called to Mumbai and sent to a place in Byculla where their medical tests were conducted,” a police officer said.

A month later, they received appointment letters and were asked to report at the railways’ Bhusawal office. But the railway officials there told the victims that the appointment letters were fake, the officer said.

When the aspirants confronted Ghanage, he informed them a few days later that the wrong letters were issued to them. The job aspirants were then asked to undergo a Covid-19 test and given fresh appointment letters with ‘postings’ at Chennai railway station, the police officer said.

At Chennai railway station, the aspirants were asked to scan goods in the name of training for a month, and when they realised that it was part of a fraud, they again questioned Ghanage, the police said. Ghanage pursued the matter with the four who issued fresh appointment letters for jobs in the General Post Office to two aspirants, but these too turned out to be fake.

Finally, Ghanage on June 11, 2021, filed a police complaint against the quartet - Shantaram Sakpal, Happy Singh, Pankaj Kumar and Rahul Yadav. Meanwhile, the zonal DCP investigated Kadam’s complaint, and on Saturday, directed the MRA Marg police to register an FIR. So far, 13 people have come forward, claiming that they have been cheated of ₹1.56 crore, the police said.

The police have booked the four accused under charges of criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy, and common intention. Interestingly, the entire fraud was played out through an advocate who was the point of contact for the job aspirants as the four preferred to remain anonymous. Police have not made the mediator an accused in the FIR as his daughter was also one of the victims, but he was not been given a clean chit either, said a police officer.