Mumbai crime: 10 held in dummy candidate scam in police recruitment

The arrested accused outside Bhoiwada police station

Scrutiny of videos taken during the physical test for police recruitment has brought to light eight cases of dummy candidates. Over Tuesday and Wednesday, Bhoiwada police registered eight cases and booked 16 people - eight dummy and eight real candidates, and arrested 10 of them so far. Sources said the accused claimed to have committed the fraud in the name of friendship, but police are probing to check if there is any monetary angle to it.

According to Mumbai police, more than 1 lakh candidates had appeared for the written exam for 1,076 constable posts on November 14, 2021. Thereafter, physical tests of successful candidates were conducted from December 6 to December 15. The process of physical tests were recorded on video to avoid confusion or inappropriate behaviour. During the verification of these videos with the photos attached on applications, police found the discrepancy. Police sources told mid-day that the scrutiny is still going on and if any other candidate is found to have done the same, action will be taken.

Investigations showed that a person named Ganesh Pawar from Beed had given the physical test for Kundlik Shinde from Jalna. Similarly, Vikas Shelke appeared in stead of Dnyaneshwar Ghodke, Kali for Praveen Shinde, Gotya Patil for Vikas Jadhav, Vishal Gusinghe for Bhagwan Takle.

Senior Inspector Jitendra Pawar of Bhoiwada police station told mid-day that so far 10 people have been arrested including eight candidates and two dummy candidates. He said, "During interrogation of the accused, we found that the dummy candidates were known to the real candidates. They claimed they have done it for friendship, but a probe is on to check if there was any transaction of money."

Police said this year there was a bigger crowd taking part in the recruitment, as the process did not take place the year before due to COVID-19, and the candidates took advantage of this to send dummy candidates.