Bengaluru: Vijayanagar Police have arrested a Railway Chief Ticket Inspector, who allegedly took bribes from candidates to help them crack competitive examinations conducted for vacant posts in various government departments.
Accused, Govindaraju (49), was posted as Chief Ticket Inspector in the South Western Railway in Bengaluru, police said. He had contacted some candidates who recently appeared in the written tests and assured them that he knew some officials related to the examination and they would help them to bag good postings if they passed the examination, police said.
It is alleged that he had spoke to candidates charging Rs 25 lakh for securing the post of Panchayat Development Officer (PDO) and collected Rs 50 lakh for helping in qualifying the Karnataka Administrative Service (KAS) prelims examination.
It has been alleged that he had asked candidates to leave the OMR sheet blank for questions that were unknown to them, assuring to fill the correct answers on their behalf later. He then collected their hall tickets, school and college leaving certificates and cheques.
The police arrested the accused when he came to Vijayanagar to meet the relatives of a candidate of KAS exam that was held on Sunday.
Police said that names of 46 candidates and photographs of cheques and documents were found on the accused's mobile phone. A thorough investigation is being conducted to track these candidates, police said. The accused told police that he handed over the documents and cheques received from the candidates to the middlemen, police said.
Bengaluru West Division DCP S Girish said, recruitment examinations were held for some government posts on Saturday and Sunday. "During which, an operation was conducted against those duping the candidates and Govindaraju was arrested. It has been learnt that people from different parts of the state were in contact with him. He did not help anyone to pass exam as he had promised but was found collecting cheques. We will issue notices to some people and question them in connection with the case. There is no connection between the accused and the Karnataka examination authority. The accused was involved in many similar cases."
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