THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Army has issued a national-level alert among its recruitment officers following the arrest of nine Uttar Pradesh natives who tried to pass off as Keralites with forged documents during an army recruitment rally in Thiruvananthapuram. As the fudged documents included fake Aadhaar cards, Central Government agencies have also been notified, senior Army officers said.‘’This has the potential to become a national-level menace. We are trying to nip it in the bud. All Army Recruiting Officers (ARO) have been notified about the attempt,’’ Brigadier P S Bajwa, Deputy Director General, Recruiting, Bangalore Zone, told Express.
At recruitment rallies attended by thousands of youngsters, the Army does face the ‘tout’ menace, where agents - ex-armymen included - take bribes from candidates promising them Army jobs. But the recent incident in Thiruvananthapuram shows that tricksters are coming up with more sophisticated techniques.
On Saturday, two candidates hailing from Bulandshahr, UP, were apprehended by the Army and handed over to the city police.
Army officers had grown suspicious during the verification of documents as the two had no grasp of Malayalam despite their papers showing Kollam as their home district. On questioning, seven more UP men were apprehended by the police. Reportedly, they had paid a tout in UP for fudging documents, including Aadhaar cards and domicile certificates, showing them to be from Kollam.
This is the second incident of its kind during army recruitment rallies in the country and the first in Kerala. Moreover, the arrests have come at a time when the Army is planning to make the Aadhaar card the basic identification document for recruitment rallies; once Aadhaar received the final nod from the Supreme Court, that is. But the fact that the forged papers included Aadhaar cards has also set the alarm bells ringing. ‘’ Even if they had cleared the document verification stage, they would have been nabbed anyway as the papers are sent for vetting,’’ Bajwa said.