Impersonation is not confined only to board and university examinations. Even youths aspiring to join the Bihar police services with a commitment to work honestly to maintain law and order are unhesitant in using others to sail through.
In the past five days, police officials have detected around 200 cases of impersonation during the physical efficiency test (PET) for constable recruitment process, with 52 fresh cases reported on Thursday.
All arrested were to be paid Rs 2 to 5 lakh each for the job. Police have questioned the candidates for whom the impersonators were working, but are yet to arrest any of them.
The state government had initiated the process for recruitment of 11, 880 constables in 2019. Bihar Central Selection Board for Constables (CSBC) had conducted written exams at various centres on January 12 and March 8 respectively.
Around 60,000 candidates were selected for the PET conducting since December 7 and January 30, 2021 at the Gardanibagh Inter College in Patna.
A senior official of CSBC said that unscrupulous candidates would not be able to get past screening, as it was being done methodically and all the documents were being carefully examined.
{{/usCountry}}A senior official of CSBC said that unscrupulous candidates would not be able to get past screening, as it was being done methodically and all the documents were being carefully examined.
{{/usCountry}}Till date around 200 constable aspirants arrested and forwarded them to judicial custody. Police said that they have all passed the written examination by having scholars appear for them. When they appeared for the PET, though, their thumb impressions failed to match with those taken during the written exams. Scholar is a term used for fake candidates who appear for someone else in the exams, and there is no dearth of such people in the merit list.
Arun Kumar, SHO of the Gardanibagh police station, while confirming the arrest of 52 persons on Thursday, said that there could be more people who got selected by fraudulent means and efforts are on to identify them. He said police have lodged eight separate FIR against the job aspirants on the basis of the statement of CSBC’s OSD. Altogether 10.52 lakh job aspirants participated in written examinations.
The SHO said that incriminating evidence had been collected against the arrested persons. Interrogations have revealed a large-scale scam in which huge sum of money was collected from the aspirants. During investigation, they conceded that they had succeeded in the written examination with the help of scholars.
The aspirants and their impersonators got their passport size photographs “digitally mixed” with the help of photo studios. “Through this process, they created a photograph which had features generally representing facial features of both the real candidate and their impersonators,” police added.
Similarly, around 460 persons were arrested in the state on impersonation charges during the statewide written examination for the recruitment of police constables in 2020.