E-Paper
UP cops hunt for 15 impersonators in Bihar who rigged constable recruitment exam
The lid was blown off the impersonation racket in December 2019 after a man was caught with a prosthetic thumb during a biometric verification process at the police lines in Varanasi.
The special cell of Uttar Pradesh police has launched a manhunt for 15 impersonators from Bihar who allegedly helped candidates to be fraudulently recruited as constables, many of them in Varanasi.
The UP government had conducted written exams for recruitment of 41,000 constables in June 2018 at 860 centres. More than three dozen impersonators (whom the police call solvers) were arrested during the exams.
The lid was blown off the racket in December 2019 after a man was caught with a prosthetic thumb during a biometric verification process at the police lines in Varanasi.
“His arrest exposed the nexus between solvers and employees of a software company who were committing fraud in the online verification process. During interrogation, the accused identified as Vivek Yadav of Azamgarh revealed the name of some suspects and police lodged an FIR on that basis,” said a police officer.
On Saturday, a crime branch team of Varanasi police carried out simultaneous raids in Nalanda and Nawada and nabbed a coaching institute’s teacher identified as Rajesh Kumar.
Police said that Rajesh, a native of Giriyak police station area of Nalanda, was arrested. However, the kingpin of the racket, who used to arrange solvers for the candidates, managed to escape from Nawada and a search is on for him.
During interrogation Rajesh revealed the names of over eight people who were said to be involved in the fraud.
With more than 12 impersonators of Patna and Begusarai on its radar, the Uttar Pradesh police teams have visited Bihar several times till date.
A Nalanda police officer privy to the investigation, requesting anonymity, said, “Rajesh had been involved in such activities for about four years and had kept his activities limited to the bordering districts of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh only to avoid detection.”
He would charge ₹4 to 5 lakh from each aspirant to provide services of impersonators, the officer said.
Additional SP (Varanasi) Mohammad Mushtaq confirmed his arrest. “Some aspirants came under suspicion as their handwriting and signature failed to match with those on their original application forms,” he said.
Two persons identified, as Pradeep Bhardwaj and Rakesh Kumar, were caught on charges of completing the biometric verification process of Vivek from some other location instead of Varanasi police lines.
In the course of the investigation police also found that 14 scholars appeared in the biometric verification process in Varanasi police line while 13 of them passed in examination.
