Kolkata: The Detective Department of the Kolkata Police took over the case registered against Rakhal Bera, a close aide of Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari for allegedly duping job-seekers.
Though Bera is in police custody, another accused named in the FIR — Chanchal Nandi — is still on the run.
According to sources, Bera and his associate Nandi duped several people during 2018-19 when Adhikari was the state Irrigation and Waterways minister. The accused duo had promised jobs to aspirants in the Group D post of the department against a huge amount of money. Sujit Dey, a resident of Ashoknagar Kalyangarh in North 24-Parganas, had lodged a complaint against Bera and Nandi alleging that he was duped by the duo by promising a job in the state Irrigation and Waterways Department, whose the then minister was Suvendu.
The duo had reportedly taken Rs 2 lakh from Dey for the same. On the basis of the complaint lodged by Dey, a case was registered on charges of criminal conspiracy (Section 120B IPC), cheating (Section 420 IPC), forgery of valuable security, will, etc (Section 467 IPC), forgery for cheating (Section 468 IPC) and using as genuine a forged document or electronic record (Section 471 IPC). The modus operandi of the alleged crime as stated in the FIR was "the accused had fetched a criminal conspiracy and undertaken a campaign sometime between July and September in 2019 to woo government job aspirants at flat 24 Block 2 of Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics Co-operative Housing Society". Receiving the information, Dey – being a graduate and a government job aspirant — went to the place in August 2019. The duo showed him some documents and easily convinced him that they were authorised to recruit people in Group-D posts in the department. They asked him to write an application addressed to the then Irrigation minister seeking the job and also took a copy of his bio-data.