19 more officers arrested in Assam's cash-for-job scam
Guwahati, July 18: Assam Police on Wednesday arrested 19 government officers for their alleged involvement in the multi-crore cash-for-jobs scam, taking the number of total arrests in the case to 55.
The 19 officials include 13 of the Assam Civil Service (ACS) cadre, three of the Assam Police Service (APS) and three from the allied services cadre.
APS officer Pallavi Sharma, the daughter of Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Lok Sabha MP from Tezpur constituency, R.P. Sharma, is among those arrested.
The Dibrugarh police, who have been probing the cash-for-job scam, had summoned these 19 officials to the Special Branch headquarters of the Assam Police at Kahilipara to collect their handwriting specimen.
It was said that their handwriting specimen would be sent for forensic verification.
All the 19 officers entered the Special Branch headquarters around 10 a.m where they were arrested later.
"We have already collected their handwriting from their offices concerned. We have also carried out forensic tests on their handwriting and matched with those recovered from the fake answer sheets recovered from the Assam Public Service Commission (APSC)," said Dibrugarh Superintendent of Police Goutam Bora.
Bora said the police have enough forensic evidence to prove their involvement in the scam. "Each of these officials had submitted three to five fake answer sheets for the examinations."
The police had summoned all of them on the pretext of collecting their handwriting specimen as it was feared that the officials might abscond later.
The Assam Police had earlier arrested 36 persons for their involvement in the cash-for-job scam.
These officers had reportedly bribed huge amounts of money to the some members of the Commission, which holds examinations for these plum posts of state service cadres.
The police have also arrested APSC Chairman Rakesh Paul, members Basanta Doley and Samedur Rahman, APSC Examination Controller Pabitra Kaibarta and other officials of the Commission for accepting bribes to manipulate the results of examinations.
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MP boat tragedy: Death toll rises to 10 with recovery of one more body; 3 tourists still missing
Jabalpur (PTI): The body of a child was retrieved on Saturday evening from Bargi Dam in Jabalpur district of Madhya Pradesh, raising the death toll in the cruise boat tragedy that took place two days ago to ten, while search continued for three missing tourists.
The boat, operated by the state tourism department, capsized during a storm on Thursday evening with some of the survivors alleging negligence and safety lapses such as life jackets not being distributed in time.
The body recovered on Saturday evening was possibly that of six-year-old Viraj Soni, said Sub-Divisional Officer of Police (SDOP) Anjul Ayank Mishra.
"The identity will be confirmed after family members identify the body," he told PTI.
Kamraj, an employee of the Ordnance Factory at Khamaria, his five-year-old son Tamil, and another child Mayuram (5) who had come from southern India were still missing.
Authorities have arranged equipment to search deep waters of the dam and are getting a generator to facilitate diving operations, Mishra added.
Divers and disaster response teams have expanded the search radius to five km, he said.
Of the 41 identified passengers on board the ill-fated vessel, 28 were rescued, police said.
More than 200 rescuers, including around 20 Army divers airlifted from Agra, joined the search operation that resumed at 5 on Saturday morning. The operation, involving the National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force and local divers, was briefly affected at around 9 am due to strong winds, officials said.
Post-mortem examinations of nine deceased persons have been completed, Mishra said.
"Our priority is to search for the missing persons. We will also register a First Information Report in the case soon," he said.
Police said CCTV footage near the boarding point showed 43 people heading towards the boat while the identities of 41 passengers have been confirmed so far.
The state government on Friday ordered a probe into the tragedy and dismissed three crew members. It also banned operation of similar vessels in the state.
