Monday, 06 March 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN

The Uttarakhand Special Task Force arrested three members of a gang from Delhi for allegedly running a website to scam people in the name of recruitment to government jobs. The STF has identified seven people in this gang so far out of which three men- Anand Mehto, Yogendra Kumar and Sanjay Rawat, who are the main accused in the scam, were arrested on Saturday night. All accused have received nearly Rs 55 lakh into their bank accounts in the past six months through this scam from candidates of different parts of the country, as per the senior superintendent of police of STF, Ayush Agrawal. He informed that some young men and women of the State registered a complaint against a gang which was seeking applicants through a website created by them to apply online for posts in government departments like physical education teacher in Indian Youth Sports Council and other posts in Railways and Income Tax department among others. As per the complaint, they have been demanding considerable amounts of money from applicants in lieu of their recruitment.

Considering the seriousness of the situation, the STF immediately started the investigation and found out that the accused had created a fake website in the name of the Indian Youth Sports Council displaying online job applications purportedly for various government departments. Agrawal said that when somebody calls on contact numbers given on the website, they tell them that Indian Youth Sports Council is a government organisation which recruits candidates for government jobs. Talking about their process, the SSP informed that the gang members initially ask the candidate to pay the registration fee of Rs 700 to apply for the mentioned government jobs after which they would be sent for training. Subsequently, they ask applicants to submit their original documents and after some days, they send them emails stating they have been selected and ask them to arrive at an Ashram in Haridwar for training during which, they demand Rs 1.5 lakh to two lakh to ensure their selection, said the SSP. He said that after getting the money, they never contact the applicants.

The STF gathered evidence against the gang through mobile numbers and bank accounts provided by complainants and arrested the three main accused on Saturday night. The team also recovered one laptop, three mobile phones and some documents of the Indian Youth Sports Council from their possession. The absconding accused are Yogendra Kumar Yogesh, Sanjay Rawat, Rajkumar alias Rajwari and Sandeep Singh who will be arrested by the STF, said SSP. He added that the team is also working on freezing the bank accounts of all accused involved in the scam.