Fake railway job racket busted in Sealdah, three arrested

KOLKATA: A fake

railway job racket

was busted after personnel of the

Crime Intelligence Branch

(CIB), Railway Protection Force (RPF), laid a trap and apprehended three persons at

Sealdah station

recently. Preliminary probe revealed that the gang collected over Rs 80 lakh from youths belonging to several states including West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar and Maharashtra in lieu of fake appointment letters. The gang also operated a website where fake lists of appointments were uploaded to make the racket look more authentic. Raids are on to nab other members of the gang, including a woman, who arranged fake medical certificates for the candidates.

After receiving a complaint that none of the youths had got jobs even after paying money, the CIB located

Mehendi Hassan

from Ruiya Paschimpara in Khardah,

North 24-Parganas

, who had been asked to pay Rs 6 lakh in installments by one Ram Nath Singh for a Group-C job in

Eastern Railway

. Hassan had already paid Rs 35,000 as the first installment. On the CIB's instructions, Hassan got in touch with Singh and called him to Sealdah station to collect the next installment.

“Our team comprising ASI Manas Barua, ASI I J Singh, N N Das, S Dutta, Chanchal Majumder, R K Pandey and Sangeeth Kumar laid a trap and nabbed three persons. The overall operation was supervised by Ajay Shankar, inspector, CIB, Sealdah and we received assistance from Ronald W A Braggs of the anti-fraud section, SER,” said Samir Saha, ASI, CIB, Sealdah.

During questioning, the three identified themselves as Ram Nath Singh (24) of Dankuni, Swapan Saha (46) of Habra and Sankar Gain (27) of Ashoknagar. Saha was apparently in charge of the outfit and it was he who created the website ‘www.rrbresultsgov.in’ to fool the youths who had paid money. Saha was also in touch with one Moumita of Garia who allegedly arranged medical examinations of the candidates at railway hospitals. She is yet to be traced though.

Singh used to go around in a car with a Government of India sticker. He also carried the fake identity card of a Chief Personal Officer. Among the other items seized were fake appointment letters and TTE badges.