Rs 6 lakh per fake sports certificate: PTI at govt school arrested

Jaipur: Special operations group (SOG) of Rajasthan Police Saturday arrested a physical training instructor (PTI) posted at a govt school in Bhilwara for allegedly facilitating forged taekwondo certificates in exchange for Rs 6 lakh.Police have identified the accused as Yogendra Singh, a PTI who allegedly acted as a middleman in arranging fake sports certificates for candidates seeking recruitment as Grade III teachers under the sports quota. Additional director general (SOG) Vishal Bansal said the arrest followed the interrogation of two candidates detained earlier in the case.The arrest came a day after the SOG busted the racket and arrested 20 people, including 19 candidates who allegedly secured employment in the Grade III teachers' recruitment-2022 under the athlete quota using forged taekwondo certificates and verification reports."During the interrogation of the two candidates arrested on Friday, the name of a PTI cropped up. The SOG arrested him and began investigation with him," Bansal told TOI.Bansal said Singh claimed that after taking Rs 6 lakh each from the two candidates, he passed Rs 5 lakh to another PTI identified as Ram Chandra."The primary investigation has revealed that none of the 19 candidates arrested for securing selection on the basis of taekwondo certificates had ever played the sport. In fact, these accused have not played any sport that could qualify them for the job," Bansal said.The SOG said investigators have also received information about four other middlemen who allegedly took money from candidates and arranged sports certificates for them."We have deputed a special team that is sifting through the digital trail of payments made by candidates to the suspects for the forged certificates. Besides that, we are also questioning all those involved in the case," Bansal said.The investigation further revealed that screenshots of emails, allegedly sent by the Taekwondo Federation, were used to provide verification reports of 39 candidates' sports certificates to the education department.On closer examination, officials noticed an error in the spelling of "secretary" in the email, which raised suspicion about the authenticity of the communication.