CRPF on hot trial of its own men on job racket

The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) is hot on the trail of its own men who have got their jobs by producing fake papers all over India.

This comes after verification carried out secretly in the department following a Supreme Court order in West Bengal. “We have already identified about 20 of them in the department who are in the job for the last 10 years,” Inspector General of CRPF, Subhash Goswami told the Hindustan Times on Sunday.

According to information available from the sources, these men were absorbed between 1995 and 1998.

These candidates have been appointed as jawans, and constables. “A gang allured unemployed youth and obtained anything between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 5 lakh in order to get them recruited in the CRPF on the basis of forged nomination forms done against Caste and Tribe quotas as per the provisions of respective Acts. These men are now posted in the trouble torn districts like Midnapur, Bankura, Purulia and North Bengal,” a senior CRPF officer said.

He also said, "There are certain surnames which are very common in Bengal like- Biswas, Podder, Roy, Ghosh and Sarkar which are used by both the general category and the SC community. Taking advantage of this ambiguity, a section of cheaters got involved in running racket by selling fake SC certificates and got the jobs.”

He also said: “After the Supreme Court passed an order to go for extensive screening of recruitment cases, we expedited the scrutiny and these fabricated certificate holders could be identified.” 

Meanwhile the North 24 Parganas and Nadia Police confirmed to the CRPF, Durgapur that persons absorbed as jawans with the group centre like Asit Ghosh (Shantipur, Nadia), Binoy Podder (Gopal Nagar, North 24 Parganas), Kanta Sarkar (Bongaon, North 24 Parganas), Palash Sarkar (Gaighata, North 24 Parganas) do not belong to the Schedule Caste category and the respective district administration have okayed to register specific cheating cases against the persons. “We will start departmental actions while the state government is likely to start criminal proceedings against them,” the IGP said. These men are currently posted in Durgapur.  The radio message through New Township Police Station, Durgapur reached the CRPF group centre on Friday.

The scrutiny also revealed bordering districts like North & South 24 Parganas, Nadia were mostly responsible behind drastic infiltration of general category candidates against the vacancies reserved for Scheduled Caste.

More then 1,000 constables are being recruited in Bengal, Orissa and Sikkim every year. “This is serious concern for us since we deal with thwarting terrorist activities,” the IGP added.

Goswami also said that the matter is not restricted in Bengal. “We have got some information that it is a nation wide racket and we are working on it,” he said.

Incidentally, this is the second of such job racket, which has come to notice in Kolkata. Earlier, the state police had come to know about a racket where policemen were recruited with fake papers.