Title - Railway job racket busted, kingpins escape arrest

KOLKATA: A late night raid at Howrah station helped the Railway Protection Force (RPF) succeeded in bust the inter-state racket involved in fake railway appointments. The racket has been in operation for the past several months and has duped about 20 to 25 youths, mostly hailing from Bihar. An estimated 20-25 unsuspecting youths, most of them from Bihar, are suspected to have been trapped in the web lain by the fraudsters. Each of them paid anything between Rs 3 and 5 lakh for railway jobs that didn't materialize.While four operators were nabbed by the RPF on Tuesday, two of the masterminds, who did not come to the station, are yet to be nabbed. stayed away from the trap at the station and managed to escape."Recently, the police in Chinsurah lodged cases against two youths who sought railway jobs with fake appointment letters. The youths claimed that they weren't aware that the appointment letters were fakes and had paid money to somebody in the railways to get jobs. They were innocents who had been roped in by the fraudsters. When he came to know of this, RPF IG and Eastern Railway's chief security commissioner S C Sahu ordered us to take up the matter. An elaborate plan was made and we started searching for leads.We got a lead through the anti-fraud squad in the Asansol Division," an RPF officer said.The anti-fraud squad had come across one youth with a fake appointment letter which stated his joining date as June 5, 2012. He was to join the Howrah divisional railway manager's office. On questioning, the youth said that he had already paid Rs 1.5 lakh to the gang and was to pay the remaining 1 lakh at Howrah station on Tuesday. The letter he was carrying was a faxed copy of the original which would be handed over to him at Howrah after he paid the sum settled at."A team from the RPF headquarters brought the youth to Kolkata and checked the faxed document. It matched the ones recovered from the two youths in Chinsurah. The subject matter, signatures and rubber-stamps were the same,"the officer added.We asked the youth from Asansol to meet the fraudsters keep the rendezvous at Howrah station around 11pm on Tuesday. Four persons arrived near the Food Plaza at the designated time and started talking with the youth. This was when the RPF men took them into custody. We found the 'original' fake appointment letter in their possession.They were also carrying 17 to 18 resumes and bank transaction slips. During interrogation, they confessed that they were involved in the racket.The four who were arrested from Howrah have been identified as Jaykissen Singh, a resident of Muzaffarpur who had taken up temporary residence at Behala, Jitendra Kumar Sinha, Purushottam Tiwari and Pratap Kumar Singh.Jaykissen was one of the masterminds and would pose as a railway official to cheat the victims. Jitendra was the broker who roped in the job-seeking youths. Purushottam and Pratap would provide shelter to Jitendra and provide the necessary muscle-power to coerce the youths into paying up."The two who managed to escape have been identified as Pappu Kumar, a resident of Patna and Satish Kumar, who hails from Delhi. These two were the main kingpins and used to operate from the Esplanade area of Kolkata. The gang members never used their own bank accounts. They would approach people and request them to accept deposits in their bank accounts and then pay them the money. From their mobile tower locations, we came to know that Pappu and Satish were in the Burrabazar area of Kolkata on Tuesday night when the raid was being carried out at Howrah station," the officer added.