The investigation into a job racket recently busted by the property cell revealed that it was a perfect fraud with dummy doctors who used to take their medical tests in the government hospitals and school classrooms were hired to conduct the exams. To avoid suspicion, some of the aspirants were also paid stipends by the accused for several months.
The details of the fraud came to light during the interrogation of the seven accused, who have been arrested for allegedly duping around 500 job seekers on the pretext of offering them jobs in government institutions, mostly in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The gang of seven used to cheat aspirants on the pretext of offering then jobs in BMC, Railways, Revenue Department and in I-Tax Department.
Forged documents have reportedly been given to job seekers, including appointment letters, medical certificates and police verification. For each certificate, the aspirants were charged thousands of rupees.
The gang used to take a group to the government hospital for medical test where Rajendra Sapre, 57, a junior medical officer with BMC used to interact with them. Later they had been taken to a corner of the hospital where a woman namely Satnam Sahani, 38, clad in appran conducted their 'medical tests'. In some cases the aspirants were told to bring their urine samples and after a few minutes they were told that their medical test been succeeded as they have paid them money.
The accused used to conduct their exams as well for which they had hired school class rooms where aspirants were asked to appear for written tests.
"During our investigation, we have seized several documents where aspirants details including their numbers were written, now we are calling them one by one to take their statements. We suspect that that that the total fraud is to the tune of several crores,” said Kedari Pawar, Senior Inspector of the Property Cell. Property Cell's API Laxmikant Salunkhe is investigation officer in the case.
Police said Prakash Sadafule, 62, a retired BMC employee was the mastermind of the gang and he was helped by others identified as Sapre, Nitin Dhotre, 39, a sweeper, Kunal Jadhav, former BMC employee, Priti Takkar, 66 a retired police constable and two others Prashant Kamat, 39 and Sahani.
