Probing a scam in which hundreds posed as the children of dead employees to get BMC jobs, the Crime Branch is inundated with complaints from those whom the posts rightfully belong to
Nearly three weeks after mid-day highlighted how hundreds of people had fraudulently landed jobs at the BMC by posing as children of dead employees, the police have begun to receive a flood of complaints from those who were cheated out of those jobs that should have rightfully been theirs.
Also read: BMC job scam - Using the dead to run a recruitment racket
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Hundreds of people posed as children of dead employees to land jobs as sweepers at the BMC. File pic for representation
mid-day had run a front-page report on the job racket (‘Using the dead to run a recruitment racket’, November 7) in which people lied about their identity and pretended to be children of deceased employees so they could avail of jobs under compassionate grounds. They paid anywhere between R10 lakh to R15 lakh to land class IV jobs that earned them Rs 25,000-Rs 30,000 a month.
The Crime Branch Unit 3 had initially registered an FIR on their own, once the lid was blown off the racket, but with several complainants coming forward now, they have filed a fresh FIR. These complainants are the real children of the dead employees, but lost out on the jobs because of the racket.
One of the officers investigating the case said, “The scam had come to our notice via our informers, so we became the complainants in the case and started investigating. Later, as the victims started approaching us, we filed a separate FIR.”
The cops are currently going through hundreds of files of new recruits to see which of them were hired with fraudulent means. They also have on their radar several employees suspected to be members of the racket.
“We can see the fear on the faces of a few employees whenever we visit the office. Once, I heard an employee talking to another in Marathi, saying he wasn’t able to sleep at night even after drinking alcohol, fearing that the police would reach his residence at any time,” said a cop.
The police have already started inquiries at BMC’s D-ward, where the racket was thriving. “We have continuously been questioning and verifying almost every employee working with the D-ward in order to keep a tab on how many of them were working under false names. As and when we find anything suspicious, we tell the employee they are under the scanner and must not to leave the area without informing us,” said an officer.
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