Two held for forging ministers’ letterheads, duping job aspirants

With the arrest of two persons, the police on Friday claimed to have busted a gang of conmen who posed as personal secretaries and OSDs of cabinet ministers and

With the arrest of two persons, the police on Friday claimed to have busted a gang of conmen who posed as personal secretaries and OSDs of cabinet ministers and duped people on the pretext of providing jobs.

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Two other members of the gang, including a key accused, were still at large, said police.

Forged letterheads many MPs and ministers were recovered from the arrested persons while efforts were on to arrest the other accused. The police were carrying out searches at their hideouts in Sultanpur, Ayodhya and Azamgarh, said an official privy to investigation.

The two arrested persons were identified as Alok Dubey, 34, and Durgesh Pratap Singh, 22 of Sultanpur. The two other gang members were Sanjay Chaturvedi (mastermind) and Santosh Tewari, who runs an outsourcing agency in Ayodhya, said Kalanidhi Naithani, senior superintendent of police (SSP), Lucknow.

The gang members used to boast about their contacts with senior government officials and ministers and duped people by promising jobs in different departments, he said.

Naithani said the accused procured mobile phone numbers similar to CUG numbers of cabinet ministers and MPs, so people often got carried away by their claims.

He said the gang had been conning people on the same pattern for many years and amassed huge wealth by getting favours in contracts of government projects.

Another official said the police so far had managed to establish that the accused had called district magistrate of Banda, chief development officer of Jaunpur and a deputy commissioner rank officer of commercial tax recently.

The gang’s kingpin Sanjay Chaturvedi had even contested the Lok Sabha elections this year from Sultanpur as an independent candidate and had political links, which he misused to get undue favours in the past.