GUWAHATI: Three Assam Civil Service (ACS) officers were arrested by the police on Tuesday night in connection with the cash-for-jobs scam in Assam Public Service Commission (APSC).
The accused, circle officers Bhaskar Jyoti Devasarma, Bhaskar Dutta and Amit Sarma, had cracked the APSC-conducted exams allegedly by bribing its chairman Rakesh Kumar Paul. The Dibrugarh police had seized the trio’s answer sheets from Paul’s Guwahati residence in November last year.
According to the police, two sets of answer sheets of each of the three ACS officers were recovered from Paul’s residence and the office of the APSC. Subsequent forensic tests confirmed duplicity.
“The three were selected based on the duplicate assessment. There could be some other such persons involved and we will nab them all,” Assam’s Director General of Police, Mukesh Sahay, said.
Earlier, Paul and eight others, including two members and an assistant controller of exams of the Commission, were arrested in connection with the scam. Paul is now in jail.
Meanwhile, various organisations, particularly peasants’ body Krishak Mukti Sangram Samitee, claimed that the arrests made so far were just the tip of the iceberg. Alleging that there were many others who had secured jobs with the help of influential people, including politicians, they demanded a thorough investigation into the scam to nail all the wrongdoers.
Last year, the Dibrugarh police had arrested an assistant engineer, Nabakanta Patir, after he was caught red-handed accepting bribes of Rs 10 lakh from a lady dentist. He had approached her promising a government job through the APSC and demanded the money. But she tipped off the police leading to his arrest.
Based on his confession, a PSO of an APSC member was subsequently arrested. During the interrogation of the duo, it emerged that they were working as conduits in the sale of plum jobs through APSC.