Vadodara: 176 aspirants cheated with fake railway job promises

VADODARA: The special operations group (SOG) on Thursday busted a railway recruitment scam and arrested five persons who had cheated 176 people by promising them jobs in the railways.The accused, including a government employee, conned the job aspirants by claiming that they were railway officials. Two other accused, who are based the Delhi, are yet to be nabbed. A judicial magistrate’s court remanded them to five days police custody. According to police, the five persons had acquired an office space in Sunrise Complex under the name of Shreeji Education. “They claimed to be representatives of the Railway recruitment board and told the job aspirants to apply for several posts in the railway department. They even used to train the aspirants and conducted exams at their office,” said H M Chauhan, police inspector, SOG. Some of the victims were also taken to a hotel in Jaipur for the exams. “Later, the gang used to tell the victims that they have passed exams for different postsand asked them to pay up anywhere between Rs 5,000 to Rs 60,000 if they wanted to secure the job,” Chauhan told TOI. The gang duped 176 persons of Rs 36.35 lakh in last four months. The accused have been identified as Tushar Purohit, a resident of Ahmedabad, Anil Patel, Manoj Vankar, Shailesh Soni, residents of Vadodara and Sursingh Rathwa, a resident of Chhota Udepur. Rathwa works as a senior clerk in district education office. Police seized 12 identity cards, 10 name plates, 52 training certificates, covers with railway mark, letter pads with watermarks, 180 letter pads with hallmark of national emblem and mobile phones. “They were in touch with two other persons named Urjapal and S P Singh who are wanted in the case,” Chauhan added.While Purohit has been booked earlier by Gotri police for assault, Soni has two cases of preparing bogus documents registered against him in City and Harni police station. Police said that their custody is necessary to investigate about the source of the identity cards, name plates, letter pads of Indian Railways among other things. Their custody was also sought on the grounds that other accused who are wanted are to be nabbed from Delhi.