Two conmen arrested for duping Odisha Railway job-seekers

Reported by Santosh Jagdev
Bhubaneswar, May 28:

Commissionerate Police today arrested two persons on charges of duping hundreds of job seekers of lakhs of rupees on the pretext of getting them jobs in the Indian Railways.

The arrested persons were identified as Smruti Jena of Mahanga and Manoj Behera of Jagatpur, both of Cuttack district.

The arrest was made on the basis of a complaint lodged by Pratap Sahu of Cuttack district at the Chandrasekharpur police station here on May 19.

According to Sahu, the accused had taken Rs 1.5 lakh from him last month to provide him Group C post in railway.

After the accused failed to provide the job as per the promise, Sahu lodged the complaint. Later, in coordination with police team, a trap was laid to nab the aforesaid culprits today after they were called near Rail Kunj here.

The accused used to cheat job seekers by providing them fake admit cards and appointment letters pertaining to the Indian Railways.

“Smruti, the mastermind along with his associate Manoj, acted as broker, ran a fake recruitment racket and duped hundreds of unemployed youth across Jajpur, Cuttack, Kendrapara, Khordha and Nayagarh districts,” said a police official of Chandrasekharpur police station.

The accused used to put up posters with contact numbers promising government jobs to aspirants while taking several lakhs from them to provide them Group ‘C’ Posts (Non-Technical cadre posts) like clerk, station master, ticket collector, commercial apprentice and traffic apprentice, besides, Group ‘D’ Posts in various disciplines including trackman, helper, assistant points man, sweeper, gunman and peon, the police official added.