Meet Railways chief vigilance inspector

Shaikh’s fluent English helped him and he had lodged some police complaints that he had lost his identity card and other documents. Without a house of his own, Shaikh used to keep travelling with his family on long-distance trains.

‘‘Every year I would contact candidates who had cleared railway recruitment board exams and charge Rs 5,000 to Rs 15,000, promising to ensure they would clear the interview too,’’ he says. ‘‘Also, I would sell tender application forms, which cost me Rs 2 for about Rs 1,000 each.’’

Shaikh says he has studied till Std XII at a ‘‘convent school in Karnataka’’. He left the town on his parents’ death. Shaikh went to Dahej in search of a job at the IPCL plant. Though he did not get a job, he became friendly with a station master and married the daughter of a railway gangman, Ibrahim Mansuri.

But police doubt that Shaikh is from Karnataka. They say he doesn’t know Kannada and his fluent Hindi has a north Indian accent.