Title - CBI suspects inside job in railway racket

CHENNAI: The multi-crore railways job racket busted by the CBI is turning out to be bigger than what the agency initially thought, as new leads suggest that the operators had a well-oiled network within the railways. CBI officials have found that the operators had a steady supply of letter heads with watermarks, seals, signatures and other railways paraphernalia.There are other elements that prompted the sleuths to suspect insiders. It was an amazingly make-believe setup , as the 'recruits' were put up in railway quarters, checked by railway doctors and even paid a daily stipend of Rs 180. During the 'training period' , batches of 30 recruits were deployed at some stations, including Howrah.The racket, headed by Naveen Kumar, a Bihar-based MBA graduate who dreamed of making movies, targeted jobless youths from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Bihar and UP. Some retired railway employees aided them; now investigators say even serving officers could be involved. The CBI has identified 80 victims from TN.

A racket that shattered many dreams
The agency suspectsthat morethan 250 people could have been cheated by the gang, which collected 6 lakh each for a job that never came .

For the victims, it was a dream shattered,their little possessions plundered . Among the youths who pawned their mothers' jewellery and family land, were engineering graduates willing to take up Group C and Group D jobs in the railways . In February, P Senthil, a BCom graduate from Selaiyur, pawned his mother's jewellery to paid 6 lakh to a former railway officer from Tamabaram for a job. He was sent for training' at an Eastern Railway division in Kolkata . It was only months later that he realized it was all part of a cruel con .

The interrogation of 11 people, including nine from TN, and their interrogation exposed a shrewd modus operandi ."Trichy resident Mary, an agent in the racketsince 2009,used to visit the building where the chief minister's grievance cell is located to scout for students desperate for a job.They asked for 6 lakh for lower level railway jobs including those of attender and record keeper," a CBI officer told TOI.

The 'selected' candidates were sent 'call letters' with the Indian Railways seal. It contained a set of guidelines for the candidates. Not many, however, found anything amiss with the letter thatwarnedthem against "approaching the chairman or the secretary of the railway recruitment board directly or indirectly," since it would render a candidate "disqualified." They asked the 'recruits' to produce the letter to the station master where they have been posted.' Investigators do not find a major difference between the forged and the actual railway documents, except a few spelling mistakes in the forged ones.

"The selected men,who went to West Bengal, were given lodging in railways quarters at Kanchrapara and were given medical checks by railway doctors. This cemented their belief that they had indeed landed the job. Those on training were given a daily stipend of 180. After the training, candidates received forged appointment letters that carried signatures and seals of chief personnel officer, general manager or divisional manager of Eastern Railway," the CBI officer said.

Some victims said they were made to do ridiculous things. "We were taken to Howrah, where we were asked to count train movements and enter it in a register along with train numbers and coach numbers," said Senthil. A month later, he grew suspicious, returned home and filed a police complaint.