- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
Police in India have arrested two men for allegedly cheating dozens of people seeking jobs with the country’s railways out of thousands of rupees.
It has been alleged that the suspects offered jobs to 28 people who were tricked into counting trains for many weeks.
Last November, the police started probing the matter after it came to light.
It has been reported that the victims paid between Rs 200,000 (£2,007) and Rs 240,000 (£2,409) each to secure jobs as ticket examiners, traffic assistants or clerks in the railways, one of the world’s biggest employers.
Scams for government jobs are not new in India where millions of youngsters desperately seek jobs.
The two arrested — Sivaraman V and Vikas Rana — are accused of being part of a gang that allegedly asked the victims, hailing from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, to stand on different platforms of the main railway station in Delhi for eight hours every day for nearly a month.
Rana, according to the police, is from Delhi where he earlier worked at the National Museum of Natural History but quit in March last year.
Sivaraman lives in Tamil Nadu, the Times of India daily reported.
According to a report by the Press Trust of India (PTI), the duo allegedly asked the victims to count the trains that passed through the major station daily.
One of the victims had told the Indian Express newspaper that he was seeking opportunities to support his family after the devastating Covid-19 pandemic.
Police were alerted to the scam by Subbuswamy, a former official of the Indian Army who said that he unknowingly put the victims in touch with the accused duo.
He told PTI that he had been aiding young men from his hometown in Virudhunagar district of Tamil Nadu to find jobs without any personal monetary interest.
He said he met a person called Sivaraman who claimed to have links with lawmakers and ministers and offered to secure government jobs for the unemployed men.
He allegedly put Subbuswamy and the victims in touch with another man, who even took the candidates for fake medical examinations.
The man allegedly stopped taking phone calls from them later.
Some of the victims said they even borrowed money to pay the scammers.
The accused are currently in police custody and have made no statement yet.
