Ropar, January 20: With the arrest of five persons, the district police claim to have busted a statewide Army recruitment scam being run in Punjab for the past more than five years.
Those arrested have been identified as Amit Kumar and Manoj Kumar of Ferozepur Cantonment area, Manjit Singh and Sunil of Jind in Haryana and Yogesh Kumar of Ludhiana.
SSP Swapan Sharma said 29 Aadhaar cards, fake document sets of 48 individuals and Rs 8 lakh in cash were recovered. Sixtyeight attestation stamps, including of the designation of SHO, tehsildar and municipal councillor, were seized too.
“The gang had secured the recruitment of at least 26 persons in the Sikh, JAK and Artillery regiments on the basis of fake caste and domicile certificates. They would charge between Rs 3 lakh and Rs 5 lakh from every recruit,” the SSP said.
The police official said clerical staff at the Army recruitment centres in Patiala, Ferozepur and Ludhiana were allegedly hand in glove with the accused. Initial investigations revealed that Yogesh of Salem Tabri in Ludhiana was the kingpin of the gang, which had so far prepared fake documents for 150 persons, mostly from Haryana.
The police said Manjit and Sunil would allegedly make youths from Haryana appear in recruitment drives in Punjab, where the competition was “less”. Manoj and Amit would allegedly hunt for aspirants in Fazilka, Moga, Faridkot and Ferozepur.
The SSP said the names of several non-commissioned officers posted in Ludhiana, Gwalior, Ferozepur and Bhubaneswar too had figured in the scam.
