The Delhi Police has busted a racket involving a coordinated gang of men involved in duping unsuspecting aspirants with the promise of railway jobs in the national capital. Nine persons have been arrested in connection with the incident so far, including two masterminds, police said. While five people were arrested earlier for impersonating Train Ticket Examiners, four more people were arrested following raids on Sunday.
The two masterminds, arrested on Sunday, have been identified as 42-year-old Sukhdev Singh and 43-year-old Sandeep Sidana. While Sukhdev, a car dealer by profession, once contested an Assembly election, Sandeep had earlier carried out job placements for call centres and has allegedly been involved in creating fake forms and identity cards for the racket. The other two arrested include Deepak and Rahul, associates aged 31 and 22, respectively who acted as agents for Sukhdev and Sandeep.
While Sukhdev was held after the police raided a hotel in Ghaziabad, Sandeep was held from Delhi’s Bikaji Gama Place. Their identities were revealed by the accused who had been arrested earlier. Among the recoveries made by the police in the raids conducted across Delhi-NCR were a Mercedes and a BMW, allegedly purchased by the masterminds using money defrauded from aspirants.
How the plan was put in place
It all began when Sukhdev, who worked as a car dealer in New Seelampur, sought help from Sandeep after incurring huge debts. According to the police, it was then that the duo decided to fleece railway job aspirants with Sukhdev negotiating the amounts and referring them to Sandeep.
Sandeep assigned Sukhdev to run a placement agency in Punjab’s Hoshiyarpur to refer people to him while he, himself, kept the two agents — Deepak and Rahul — stationed at the office of the Divisional Railway Manager and the railway hospital in Paharganj.
Interestingly, Deepak and Rahul both had easy access due to the association of their families with these institutions. While Deepak was a contracted pump operator at the DRM office, Rahul’s uncle is a railway ambulance driver and his mother worked in the staff quarters.
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The modus operandi
Once the aspirants were referred to them by Sukhdev and Sandeep, Deepak and Rahul would take them inside the DRM office for a round after filling up the forms. The aspirants would then be taken to the Paharganj railway hospital where they would go through physical examinations and give their blood samples. According to the police, the accused would make sure that the entire process appeared legitimate.
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The Delhi Police have registered a first information report under IPC Sections 419 (cheating by personation) 420 (dishonestly inducing/ cheating delivery of property) 468 (forgery for cheating) 471 (using forged documents as genuine) as well as provisions of the Railways Act.
