7 arrested, 6 FIRs registered for malpractices in police recruitment exam

Mumbai: Seven people are arrested in connection with the recent police recruitment drive where candidates allegedly sent their friends as dummy examinees to clear physical tests for the posts of police constables.

Till now, a total of eight First Information Reports (FIRs) have been registered, 16 people are booked and nine, including one dummy, are arrested.

Senior inspector Jitendra Pawar of the Bhoiwada police station said, “The written examination for filling 1,076 posts of constables was conducted on November 14, 2021. Thousands of aspirants from across Maharashtra appeared for the recruitment exam. Candidates who had cleared the written test were called for the physical test in December, for which the dummy candidates appeared.”

The malpractice came to light when the recruitment committee, while checking the identification of the candidates discovered that the examinee’s picture on the document did not match with the ones that appeared for physical examination, added Pawar.

The verification and scrutiny of the documents of written exams appeared by actual candidates and people who appeared for physical tests are still going on and there are chances that more FIRs will be registered, said Pawar.

In the last week of January, the recruitment committee noticed a candidate, Ganesh Pawar, resident of Beed district, used his friend Balanath Pawar as a dummy candidate for a physical test. During the written exam and physical test videos were made as evidence which were checked and found that the person who appeared for the physical test was thinner and faces were completely different, said a police officer. The first FIR was registered against Balanath Pawar and Ganesh Pawar in Bhoiwada police station in January last week and Balanath was arrested.

During investigation, police found that more people were involved in it and most of them from Beed, Jalna and Aurangabad districts of Maharashtra. The police have arrested Krishna More, Bhagwan Takle, Vikas Salunkhe, Kundali Shinde, Pravin Shinde, Dyaneshwar Ghodke, Akash Kawale. Earlier, police had arrested Balanath Pawar on January 25 and Satish More on January 29. Police said Krishna More is a dummy candidate and six more dummy candidates are wanted and police have been looking for them.