Fake railway job racket busted, five arrested

A vigilance team of Eastern Railway has busted a fake job racket and arrested five persons including a railway employee from the old Koilaghata building of the Eastern railways.

The team was investigating into the fake job racket that had been operating from the city. The racket had duped many job-seekers with false promises of jobs in different departments under state and Central government.

One of the main accused, who is also a railway employee, asked some job-seekers to come at Koilaghata on Wednesday saying that they would be given appointment letters in the railways. The accused was distributing fake appointment letters among the job-seekers at the Old Koilaghata building.

This attracted the attention of some of the employees as the accused had been loitering there aimlessly. Senior railway officials came to know about the incident. The senior vigilance officials raided the place and arrested the accused. The fake appointment letters were seized from the accused. The vigilance officials arrested four other persons who were loitering at various places inside the building too.

The investigating officers came to know that the accused are residents of Burdwan. The accused, who was an employee, has been identified as Amal Matia. The vigilance officers said that around 10 fake railway appointment letters were recovered from his possession.

It may be mentioned that a fake job racket was busted after the Crime Intelligence Branch (CIB) and Railway Protection Force (RPF) laid a trap at Sealdah station in February this year. Three persons were arrested. In the course of investigation, CIB officials came to know that the gang collected around 80 lakh from youth belonging to several states including Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Maharashtra.

The gang used to operate a website where the fake lists were uploaded. The racket used to get money from many youth from various parts of Bengal too.

After interrogating the three accused, the investigating officers got some important information regarding the method of operation and also came to know about some other persons involved in the crime.