THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A person, who claimed to be a railway recruitment board officer, duped 20 unemployed youths to the tune of over Rs 1.5 crore by offering jobs in railways. The Poojappura police have registered a case against three persons based on the complaint of job aspirants. The police said the key suspect, identified as T Santhosh Kumar, 41, of Balaramapuram, is absconding. One more suspect, identified as Roy, of Chennai, and an unidentified person are also absconding.The police have begun a probe to trace them. Most of the victims are graduates with backgrounds in engineering and technical education.
According to the police, Santhosh Kumar and his accomplices offered jobs in the posts of junior engineer and clerk in railways. Santhosh collected Rs 17 lakh for the post of junior engineer and Rs 8 lakh for the post of clerk from the job aspirants. A complainant from Pongumoodu gave him Rs 8 lakh for the post of clerk.
The offer letters with the logo of the railways were given to the aspirants after completing medical and certificate verification in Chennai. However, the candidates realised that they were cheated after they approached railways officials seeking posting. As per the complaint, the fraud took place in February this year.
“The key suspect approached the police first. He filed a complaint with the police mentioning all the details of the job aspirants. Then he disappeared. When we probed the matter, we came to know that all the victims had transferred money to Santhosh. Santhosh approached the police with a complaint to evade suspicion. He went absconding along with his accomplices. Efforts are on to trace them. Santhosh is also an accused in several visa cheating cases,” said R Roj, Poojappura inspector of police.