CBI arrests Masterminds of railway recruitment racket

CBI arrests Masterminds of railway recruitment racket

Mumbai: CBI team has arrested a Bihar-native from Selaqui here in connection with the fake railway recruitment website through which several people were allegedly duped of lakhs of rupees. The alleged masterminds of a job racket were held for fleecing unemployed youths on the pretext of giving them recruitment in railways and training for the same using a fake Railway Recruitment Board website.

Two prime accused in the case, Naresh Rathi alias Balram Sharma and Akhilesh Kumar alias Sachidanand Jha, were arrested this week from Haryana and Dehradun, respectively, while four members of the gang were nabbed in Lucknow last month, CBI sources said here today. About 18 months ago, a gang of 12 had set up a fake website similar to that of the Railway Recruitment Board and cheated several unemployed youths with the false promise that they would be hired as ticket collectors with Northern Railway.

“These gang members took the victims to railway office for imparting ‘training’ for positions in railways. The gang was operating in various parts of the country and targeting gullible unemployed youth,” a CBI official said.

The sources said that Rathi and Kumar emerged as the alleged ring leaders of the gang and were arranging for medical examination and training of the unsuspecting victims, to whom they would issue appointment letters in the name of railways.

CBI had registered an FIR last month on the complaint of one Lalit Verma, who claimed he was cheated to the tune of Rs 1.50 lakh on the pretext of being given employment as a ticket checker in Northern Railways.

“More cases of similar cheating have also come to light.

The modus operandi adopted by the gang was to issue forged appointment letters (to victims) and arranging their bogus medical examination at Railway Hospital to convince them about the genuineness of the selection. The gang was operating using a fake website of Railway Recruitment Control Board,” the official said.

Three of the 12 accused had been arrested earlier. The probe by the economics offenses wing (EOW) of the CBI led them to Dehradun, where they arrested a key accused Sachchidanand Jha, a native of Darbhanga in Bihar. Jha had been living in Selaqui for the past few months and had even worked as a property dealer in the area. During his stay in Dehradun, too, he allegedly duped several local residents with bad property deals.

Deputy superintendent of police (CBI) Akhil Kaushik said, “On Wednesday, Jha was produced before a court by the CBI team in order to get a transit remand for Delhi. Upon getting the court’s permission, Jha was taken to Delhi for investigation. He had been living in Dehradun using different names — Akhilesh Jha, Akhilesh Sharma and Naresh Rathi. He is likely to be produced before a Delhi court on Thursday.”

The CBI officer said that the gang had created a fake website with a sharp resemblance to that of the Railway Recruitment Board’s to lure “targets”. The conmen would then charge unsuspecting victims between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 5 lakh to “arrange” jobs.