Noida: Three held for duping over 450 people on pretext of govt jobs

Noida: Three people, including two contractual clerks with the primary education office in Greater Noida, were nabbed by the Noida police for allegedly duping more

Noida: Three people, including two contractual clerks with the primary education office in Greater Noida, were nabbed by the Noida police for allegedly duping more than 450 people on the pretext of helping them get government jobs.

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The suspects have been identified as Brajesh Kumar Verma, Mahesh Patel and Rajveer. Patel and Rajveer were clerks with the additional Basic Shiksha Adhikari (BSA) office in Dankaur, the police said.

According to the police, the scam started in 2007 when Verma registered a fake NGO in Prayagraj. Over the years he opened seven offices in as many districts of the state, including one in Gautam Budh Nagar, they said.

Verma is a science graduate who would run an optician shop in Rae Bareilly and also fought 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the police said, adding that he duped unemployed people of Rs 25-30 lakh for the election cost.

“In October this year, he opened a training centre in Sector 22 to make women self-reliant. He obtained a fake letter from the state government using which he would contact government schools where he would pretend to organize training seminars for low-level administration jobs, investigation officers, beauticians, and tailors, among others,” said Luv Kumar, joint commissioner of police (law and order), GB Nagar.

Verma would offer fake certificates and joining letters to the victims and collect various amounts as security money.

“He would then tell the victims that they were at adhoc positions. A few months later, he would change base and use a different name in a different city,” said Kumar.

Police officials suspect that he has duped at least 100 people in Noida so far, around 50 in Ghaziabad and more than 300 in other districts. The suspect was planning a new centre in Delhi in January but had been denied permission because of Covid restrictions, the officials said.

The police said that by using his luxury office in Sector 22, he was on his way to obtain a Rs 25 lakh fund from NABARD in January on pretext of opening a farmer’s club and Haat bazaar. An inspection of the site had already been done by government officials.

“He would also get demand letters from government schools and then share this with the state government. He was trying for a Rs 1 crore fund from the state welfare board as well,” said the joint CP.

The officials said that he has already gone to jail in 2011 and 2013 in Mainpuri and Fatehpur districts, respectively. A probe is underway to identify how he was able to carry on with the scam even after being arrested twice, they said.

The police said that at least five other people, some of them principals of government schools, are involved in the racket, and efforts are on to arrest them.

Rajveer’s wife had also been appointed as a coordinating officer to bring in candidates but police said that she was unaware of the scam while Rajveer and Patel were both bringing in victims.

The suspects were booked for cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy. Several sets of fake certificates, documents, phones, and Rs 41,500 were recovered from them, the police said.