2 arrested for fraud in postal department recruitment

LUCKNOW: Two members of a gang fleecing job aspirants were nabbed by sleuths of STF on Saturday. Those arrested were identified as Ram Praveen and Dharamraj Kumar, both of Nalanda, Bihar. The police also seized their two mobile handsets.

SSP STF Amit Pathak said the gang leaked results of exam for selection of multi-tasking staff and postman conducted by Indian Postal services on a fake website ahead of official results. Preliminary investigations revealed the kingpin Dharamraj used to make calls and ask for money promising selection and charged Rs 30,000 from each candidate for the post of multi-tasking staff and postman.

They had duped around 300 students giving them different bank account numbers to deposit cash and had amassed Rs 90 lakh. "We are probing their bank details and also of others associated with the gang," police told TOI.

The gang used to call up applicants who had scored less than qualifying marks and assured to increase their marks against payment of cash. The gang had leaked data of applicants and results from third party which conducted the examinations.

They had created a fake website of Indian Postal Department Examination Results and duped thousands of applicants and eventually the exam had to be cancelled. The exam was conducted by Indian Postal Services in December 2015, at Agra, Allahabad, Bareilly and Lucknow.

To win the confidence of aspirants, the miscreants formed a base in Nalanda, one of the most revered seats of learning in Bihar. STF inspector Abhinav Singh said the probe began when V K Gupta, vigilance officer of postal department lodged an FIR in 2016 regarding the fraud.

Source:-The Times of India