PANAJI: Shruti Prabhugaonkar, a resident of Porvorim, was arrested on Tuesday by the Ponda police in connection with an alleged cash-for-jobs scam. While she told the police that she is BJP’s mahila block president for the Nuvem constituency, BJP said she was associated with the party, “but not today”.
BJP’s general secretary Narendra Sawaikar said, “BJP is a political party with more than 10 lakh members. In Goa, it has 3.5 lakh members. Shruti must have worked for BJP at one point in time, but it does not mean that the entire party is bad. If a person is a member of a club and is found to be involved in illegal things, he is removed from the club. This is a political party, and we will act.”
Stating that “she was associated with the party but not today”, Sawaikar said that if anyone comes across a party member connected to cash-for-jobs scams, a police complaint should immediately be filed against them.
“Govt and police will not spare anyone, and strict action would be taken against such a person,” he said while demanding that govt take the inquiry to its logical end and give justice to the state’s youths.
Ponda police had arrested a 49-year-old secondary school teacher, Yogesh Kunkolienkar, on Monday in connection with a cash-for-jobs scam. They suspect that Kunkolienkar, a resident of Dhavali, duped at least 20 people to the tune of Rs 1.2 crore.
The complaint against him was filed by Sangam Bandodkar from Nageshi, who stated that Kunkolienkar promised him a job in the revenue department upon payment of a certain amount.
Accordingly, Bandodkar paid him Rs 12.5 lakh in July, but Kunkolienkar failed to arrange the govt job, police said. During investigation, Kunkolienkar mentioned the name of Shruti, to whom he paid the money received from Bandodkar, in Bardez.
Bandodkar filed the complaint against Kunkolienkar after the arrests of several people over the past few days by various police stations in connection with different complaints of job scams.
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