Two held for duping 1,000 people over jobs

New Delhi: A retired Indian Army personnel and a woman from Assam were arrested here for duping thousand of people across the country on the pretext of providing jobs in the Indian Army and health ministry, police said Wednesday.

Archana Singha, 45, who hails from Jorhat in Assam, was arrested from her house on Oct 9 and Ravinder Chauhan, 27, who hails from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, was held from Hazrat Nizamuddin railway station here Sep 9, said Deputy Commissioner of Police Ashok Chand.
"More than 90 Bank accounts of different banks were freezed," said Chand.
The Crime Branch of Delhi Police received a complaint that Chauhan claiming to be a Major of Indian Army has duped 38 job seekers to the tune of Rs.1 crore on the promise of getting them jobs in Assam Rifles and health ministry.
Ravinder Chauhan was nabbed from the railway station in his Honda City car following a on tip-off. "He was carrying a pistol along-with 15 live cartridges and an arm licence purportedly issued from Jammu and Kashmir," said Chand adding that the license was found be to be fake.
Chauhan told police that he used to impersonate as a Major in Indian Army duped crores of rupees from job seekers and Singha of Assam was the mastermind of the racket.
A raid was conducted at Jorhat and Singha was also arrested. Singha told police that she was behind the racket.
Chauhan joined Rastriya Rifles as jawan in 2003 and in 2007, while he was posted at Baramula in Jammu an Kashmir, he got injured and was declared unfit for further service. He got in touch with Singha and collected money from more than 400 people to the tune of more than Rs.3 crore.
In 2007-2008, recruitment of Assam Rifles was held in Jorhat where she came in contact with a doctor who was Major in Assam Rifles and succeeded in getting three to four people appointed.
She earned Rs.10,000 to Rs.15,000 from candidate in the recruitment.
Similarly, in 2008-2009 she got a few candidates appointed of Assam Rifles held at Cooch in Bihar, however, she collected money from several candidates.
She began to appoint agents in different parts of India. Agents were made in Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, MP, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Meghalya, Manipur, Nagaland and Hyderabad.
The agents used to allure students by promising them jobs and used to collect Rs.25,000 to Rs.1 lakh per candidate as advance.
Thereafter, Singha would ask her agents to bring all the candidates to Assam and would ask them to stay in some hotel.
She would manage some fake doctors and officers and would get candidates of Assam Rifles medically examined in the hotel.
She would also get signed a blank answer sheet from them. Thereafter, she would send them back and would ask them to wait for the result and appointment letters.
After some time, she would send a photocopy of provisional appointment letters to her agents and would ask them to deposit rest of the money before giving them original appointment letters.
She used to earn Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2 lakh per candidate from the agents. After collecting rest of the money she and her agents would not take their calls.
During the same period she also came in contact with T. Israil who told her that he has contacts in the health ministry.
At the instance of Israil, she also collected money from hundreds of candidates. She paid around Rs.1 crore to Israil but not a single candidate was selected. But she succeeded in giving fake appointment letters to the students.
Till now, they have cheated around more than 1000 job seekers and have collected money to the tune of more than Rs.10 crore.