Gujarat: Railway job aspirant removes thumb skin, puts on friend's hand to appear for exam
both held
Vadodara, Aug 25: In a desperate attempt to get a railway job, a candidate removed his thumb skin using a hot pan and pasted it on his friend's thumb with a hope that the latter will clear the biometric verification and appear for the recruitment exam in his place.
But, the thumb skin pasted on the proxy's hand fell off when the exam supervisor sprayed a sanitiser on it during the biometric verification before the railway recruitment test conducted in Gujarat's Vadodara city on August 22, an official said on Thursday.
The Vadodara police on Wednesday arrested the candidate Manish Kumar and his proxy Rajyaguru Gupta, natives of Munger district in Bihar, for cheating and forgery, Additional Commissioner of Police S M Varotariya said.
Both are in their mid-20s and had cleared Class 12 exam in the past, he said.
A private company, authorised by the Railways, had arranged a recruitment test for railway 'D' group vacancies at a building in Laxmipura area here on August 22 in which more than 600 candidates appeared, as per the FIR registered at Vadodara's Laxmipura police station.
"To prevent any sort of cheating, all the candidates were required to give their thumb impression, which was then matched with their Aadhaar data through a biometric device before the test. At that time, the device failed to register the thumb impression of a candidate named Manish Kumar despite repeated attempts," Varotariya said.
The exam supervisor grew suspicious as he observed the candidate was trying to hide something by putting his left hand inside the pocket of his pants.
"When the supervisor sprayed sanitiser on his left thumb, the skin pasted on it fell off," the official said.
After learning about the cheating, the agency called the police and lodged a complaint under Indian Penal Code Sections 465 (forgery), 419 (cheating by impersonation) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy), he said.
The person who was caught told the police that his real name was Rajyaguru Gupta and he came to appear for the exam posing as his friend Manish Kumar.
Since Gupta was good in studies, Kumar, who had applied for a railway job, came up with the idea of sending Gupta for the recruitment test using forged identity, the police official said.
"A day before the test, Kumar put his left thumb on a hot cooking pan which created a blister on it. Kumar removed the skin using a blade and pasted it on Gupta's left thumb, as he knew that biometric verification will be done at the exam centre to ascertain the real identity," he said.
"We have arrested both Gupta and Kumar," the official said.
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No need for guv: DMK leader Kanimozhi
Chennai (PTI): Senior DMK leader Kanimozhi Karunanidhi on Friday reiterated her party’s opposition to the office of the governor amid uncertainty over government formation in Tamil Nadu after a fractured election mandate.
Speaking to PTI Videos, Kanimozhi emphasised that the DMK’s demand for the abolition of the governor’s post remained unchanged, especially as questions arise over constitutional propriety during the current political transition.
"Our position that we do not need a governor at all is something the DMK has never changed at any point in time," she said.
When asked about the governor’s actions following the election results—particularly the delay in inviting the leading party to form the government—Kanimozhi pointed to what she described as the "inherent friction" between the office of the governor and the political interests of the state.
She said the current situation "raises a lot of questions" and requires introspection regarding constitutional procedures.
Kanimozhi described the election results as lacking a "clear mandate", which she identified as the primary reason for the prevailing political uncertainty in the state.
"What the people decide is supreme," she said, adding that while the mandate was not decisive, it must be respected.
The Thoothukudi MP attributed the ongoing delays and "many confusions" to the absence of a decisive majority for any single party.
She firmly dismissed rumours about the DMK potentially supporting the AIADMK from outside to help stabilise the government.
She described such reports as mere "speculation" and "rumours".
"We can’t be responding to every rumour," she said, declining to comment on the AIADMK’s claims regarding its numbers to form the government.
The political situation in Tamil Nadu remains fluid as stakeholders await the governor’s next constitutional step in an Assembly where no party has secured a clear majority.
The DMK and AIADMK—both of which suffered significant losses to the TVK—are reportedly exploring tactical manoeuvres to navigate the hung Assembly.
The TVK, with 108 seats and the support of Congress’s five MLAs, is still short of the majority mark. The DMK and AIADMK secured 59 and 47 seats, respectively.
