Chandigarh: Army clerk held in ASI hiring scam

Chandigarh, December 13

The Crime Branch of UT police has arrested a clerk posted at the Army Headquarters in Jabalpur as part of the ongoing investigation in the ASI recruitment scam. This is the fourth arrest in the case. Earlier, a constable and two others were arrested.

Suspect Anil (20), a resident of Alipura village in Jind, is a lower divisional clerk (LDC) at the Army Headquarters, STC- I, Jabalpur.

The police said Anil’s wife had filled a form for the post of ASI. It is alleged Anil filled another form with fake information to benefit his wife.

“The applicant’s name in the form was mentioned as Rojalesh, which is similar to his wife’s name. Further, other information in the form was similar to that of the suspect’s wife,” said a police officer.

The police claimed the suspect believed by doing so, they would get both roll numbers together. “The candidate who would have appeared against the fake application form would have helped the suspect’s wife in cheating,” said an official. Interestingly, the police claimed the suspect’s wife was not aware of the plan.

Before joining the Army, the suspect ran a cyber café in Uchana, Jind. He was produced in court, which remanded him in two-day police custody. In September, the Chandigarh police had advertised vacancies for 49 post of ASI and received 15,802 applications in response.

During digital scrutiny, several applicants were found to have submitted multiple applications with minor alterations in details, following which a probe was initiated.

On verification, 122 such applications were detected after which a case was registered at the Sector 11 police station on November 30.