Four people, including Muna Mohanty, against whom a Look Out Circular (LOC) was issued, have been arrested.
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The Crime Branch wing of Odisha Police on Friday claimed to have arrested four people, including one of the masterminds in the sub-inspector of police recruitment scam that triggered statewide uproar and raised serious questions on the government job recruitment exercise.
Four people, including Muna Mohanty, against whom a Look Out Circular (LOC) was issued, have been arrested.
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The accused people were arrested after a series of search operations. They are being questioned. More people, including Sankar Prusty, the key conspirator and mastermind of the job-for-cash scam, are involved in it. Police have intensified the investigation, and the scam will be thoroughly uncovered very shortly, said Vinaytosh Mishra, Director General of Police, Crime Branch, on Thursday.
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The written test of the Combined Police Service Examination, 2024, was scheduled to be held on October 5 and 6, but was postponed by the Odisha Police Recruitment Board (OPRB) after 117 job aspirants, including three middlemen, were arrested in Berhampur. Later, the Crime Branch took into custody more accused in connection with the recruitment scandal.
The grave improprieties of the recruitment test were perpetrated mainly owing to outsourcing the conducting of the examination to dubious private agencies. Making a mockery of the system, the conspirators who used it as a tool to collect money from job aspirants were taking the candidates to an undisclosed destination in Andhra Pradesh on buses a few days before the test when the skeletons tumbled out of the recruitment test cupboard. The aspirants were being taken to prepare and train them well, allegedly with the leaked questions.
The government-run Odisha Police Recruitment Board (OPRB) had awarded the conducting of the exam to ITI Limited, a central PSU, which later subcontracted the exam conduct process to Bhubaneswar-based Silicon Techlab and Panchsoft Technologies, ironically headed by Sankar, one of the masterminds of the scam.
As many as 1.53 lakh candidates applied for 933 police sub-inspector posts, the recruitment test of which is now postponed after the scam erupted. The exam, which was earlier scheduled to be held on 8 and 9 March, was postponed and rescheduled on 5 and 6 October. The arrested aspirants had allegedly coughed up Rs 10 lakh as an advance to a racket for securing the jobs.
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