‘Whistleblower’ to face FIR in teacher recruitment scam

Lucknow: Gonda's much-publicised Anamika Shukla case — in which Shukla herself emerged as a whistleblower to expose a racket involving the appointment of teachers in govt schools using forged documents — took a dramatic turn on Monday. The court directed police to register an FIR against Anamika herself, along with Basic Shiksha Adhikari (BSA) Atul Kumar Tiwari, manager of Bhaiya Chandrabhan Dutt Memorial School Anupam Pandey, principal Digvijaynath Pandey, former finance and accounts officer Siddharth Dixit and clerk Sudhir Singh.The court order came on a complaint filed by Pradeep Kumar Pandey, stating that Shukla was drawing a salary since 2017, though in 2020 she declared herself unemployed. The complainant also raised suspicion of a multi-crore embezzlement. Earlier, Shukla herself reported the misuse of her documents and 25 others getting appointments in her name in separate districts of the state. According to the FIR filed by Pradeep, a syndicate within the basic education department allegedly misused degrees of unemployed youth to make fraudulent appointments across multiple Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBVs). He claimed that through fake postings and forged salary bills, crores of rupees were embezzled. The scam, first exposed in 2020, revealed that salaries were drawn in the name of Anamika Shukla at 25 KGBVs across UP since 2017. When the special task force (STF) began probing the case, the real Anamika Shukla — ironically unemployed — appeared before the BSA office, alleging that her educational documents were misused.However, investigators later found that Shukla herself continued to draw salaries fraudulently until Jan 2025. Officials discovered glaring irregularities, such as her being shown reappointed in 2020 at the same Ramapur-based school where she was working since 2017. Pradeep alleged that officials leaked youth data to execute such scams systematically. He also produced evidence that Shukla received her last salary credit on Jan 9, 2025, months after the fraud was flagged.SP Gonda, Vineet Jaiswal said a probe is being conducted.

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