In the precincts of Lucknow, Ballia, and Gonda in Uttar Pradesh, law enforcement has apprehended 14 individuals on charges of fraudulent activities during the ongoing police constable recruitment examination in the Ballia district, as per officials’ statements on Sunday. This group comprises 11 members spread across three criminal factions, inclusive of a personnel from the forest department and a health department technician. Additionally, three men were apprehended for allegedly assuming false identities as exam aspirants.
Dev Ranjan Verma, the Superintendent of Police in Ballia, disclosed that the police successfully dismantled three criminal syndicates endeavoring to disrupt the ongoing police constable recruitment examination, resulting in the detention of 14 individuals. Notable among those apprehended were Abhay Kumar Srivastava, a laboratory technician affiliated with the health department in Sultanpur district, and Fatehbahadur Rajbhar, a constable in the forest department hailing from Katni district in Madhya Pradesh.
Furthermore, law enforcement detained three individuals who purportedly substituted for registered candidates during the examination process. In Gonda district, the police apprehended three individuals in connection to the constable recruitment proceedings, with one arrested for assuming a false identity as a candidate. Kundan Kumar Chaudhary, a resident of Nalanda district in Bihar, was apprehended on Saturday evening with the collaboration of local police at an examination center in Nawabganj town, as confirmed by Vineet Jaiswal, the Superintendent of Police in Gonda.
Chaudhary was taking the test in lieu of Tanmay Singh, a resident of the Mankapur police station area. Tanmay Singh and Harendra Kumar, both applicants for the constable recruitment, were subsequently detained on Sunday. Superintendent Jaiswal revealed that a financial arrangement of Rs 6 lakh had been finalized between Chaudhary and the two candidates. Chaudhary had taken the exam on Tanmay’s behalf at an examination center in Nawabganj during the second shift on Saturday and was slated to appear for Harendra on Sunday at another center in Gonda city.
Jaiswal further stated that a legal case has been initiated against the trio at Nawabganj police station. Authorities reported over 100 arrests across Uttar Pradesh in the past two days for individuals assuming false identities in the police constable recruitment examination, engaging in fraudulent activities. Director General of Police (DGP) Prashant Kumar, on Saturday, stated that out of the 122 total arrests, 15 occurred in Etah, nine each in Mau, Prayagraj, and Siddharthanagar, eight in Ghazipur, seven in Azamgarh, six in Gorakhpur, five in Jaunpur, four in Firozabad, three each in Kaushambi and Hathras, two each in Jhansi, Varanasi, Agra, and Kanpur, and one each in Ballia, Deoria, and Bijnor.
Additionally, Kumar conducted an unexpected inspection at two examination centers in the Gomtinagar area of Lucknow. He reported that more than 48 lakh candidates are partaking in the examination, held in two shifts on February 17-18.