Manpower firm extorted ₹3.9 lakh from Chandigarh MC contractual workers: Probe
These workers are deputed at the Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC) in Sector 17, Chandigarh, a component of the Smart City Mission
Four days after two officials of a manpower firm were arrested for extorting money from MC’s outsourced workers for extending their period of service, police probe has revealed that they had already extracted ₹3.90 lakh from the workers.
These workers are deputed at the Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC) in Sector 17, a component of the Smart City Mission.
The accused, identified as Kuldeep, is a supervisor at V INSPIRER Facility Pvt Ltd, Gurugram, and Mohan Jangra is the firm’s operation manager. They are under two-day police remand. ₹3.90 lakh had recently been transacted to the company by a middleman, as per Chandigarh Vigilance Cell’s probe.
The municipal corporation (MC) had awarded a tender to V INSPIRER Facility Pvt Ltd in February this year for supplying manpower, which is also under scrutiny now. The firm had supplied around 50 contractual workers, including peons and security guards, for the Smart City Mission.
Investigation revealed that the company had operations in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, among other states. It further found that some workers, who refused to pay the bribe, were recently fired. Following this, more workers, who were previously removed, came forward to provide information about the extortion racket.
Among them, a peon, hired on outsourced basis at ICCC, alleged that Kuldeep demanded ₹20,000 in exchange for ensuring his continued employment.
Sleuths from the cell laid a trap and caught Kuldeep red-handed while accepting a bribe of ₹10,000 on behalf of Mohan at his office in ICCC. Subsequently, both were arrested on Tuesday.
They were was booked under Sections 384 (extortion) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and the Prevention of Corruption Act.
This case comes close on the heels of the arrest of a fake contractor, identified as Rajiv Kumar, operating under the guise of providing sanitation workers to government schools in Chandigarh from NGO ‘Venus’. He is accused of deceiving 100 school cleaners by taking ₹30,000 to ₹40,000, falsely promising them jobs and subsequent regularisation.
The cleaners had been working for seven months without receiving salaries for the past four months.
