BHOPAL: At least 25 state government employees, including teachers, cops, engineers and doctors are suspected to be working on the basis of fake scheduled tribe certificates in Madhya Pradesh the state having the highest 21%-plus tribal population in India.
“A case has been registered by the MP Police’s special task force (MPSTF) against six state government teachers, including three females identified as Sitaram, Jawahar Singh, Sarla Manjhi, Rajesh Kumar, Kusum Manjhi and Sunita Rawat for allegedly getting government jobs on the basis of fake scheduled tribe (ST) certificates,” deputy SP (MPSTF-Gwalior Unit) Sanjiv Tiwari said.
But it’s not just these six teachers only who attained state government jobs with the help of fake ST certificates. 19 more state government employees, including lecturers, cops, doctors and assistant engineers too are suspected to have attained state government jobs and investigations are underway.
The probe began with a complaint to the special director general of police (Special DG-MPSTF) Pankaj Srivastava. Consequently an 11-strong special investigation team of Gwalior unit was formed under supervision of SP-STF Rajesh Bhadauria to further the investigations.
Based on subsequent investigations 25 government employees were tracked, who are suspected to have attained the jobs by using the fake ST certificates. A case was subsequently registered against six of them (all teachers), while further investigations are underway against 19 others. Based on the findings of the continuing probe, more names will be added in the FIR.
“Not just have these employees been working in various state government departments, including education, health, revenue, police and even law department for as long as 10-15 years, but the organized racket which helped them get the fake caste certificates, has also ensured that they were not caught during the verification of their joining documents. We’re now looking for those running the organized racket,” a senior MPSTF officer told TNIE.
Importantly, the majority of the fake certificates have been made in the state’s Gwalior-Chambal region.
The same region which decades back was infamous for notorious dacoits, had recently hogged headlines after emerging as the nucleus of the recently busted Aadhar-manipulation based MP Police Constable Recruitment Exam 2023 racket. So far more than 30 cases have been registered in that case and over 30 people, including alleged racket operators, Aadhar centres’ operators, solvers from MP and Bihar and beneficiary candidates have been arrested in those cases.