3 min readGuwahatiJul 20, 2018 08:39 AM IST
First published on: Jul 19, 2018 at 03:40 AM IST
The officers who were summoned and later arrested comprised 13 Assam Civil Service (ACS) officers, three Assam Police Service (APS) officers, two tax officers and a transport officer. (Representational Image)
The Assam police on Wednesday arrested 19 police and administrative officers, including a police officer who is the daughter of a BJP MP, after summoning them to submit handwriting samples and interrogation in connection with a multi-crore scam in recruitment to Assam Public Service Commission.
“All 19 have been arrested based on expert opinion on discrepancies in their answer scripts,” confirmed Gautam Borah, Dibrugarh Superintendent of Police. The arrests on Wednesday took the total number of arrests in the case to 63, with two persons still absconding.
BJP MP from Tezpur R P Sharma’s daughter, Pallavi Sharma, who is an Assam Police Service (APS) officer of the 2016 batch, was summoned along with 18 other officers from the same batch last week.
The officers who were summoned and later arrested comprised 13 Assam Civil Service (ACS) officers, three Assam Police Service (APS) officers, two tax officers and a transport officer.
The ACS officers arrested are Utpal Bhuyan, Barnali Das, Susovan Das, Dhruvojyoti Chakraboty, Manzoor Ilahi Laskar, Moon Mazoomdar, Mustafa Ahmed Borbhuyan, Md Saibur Rahman Borbhuyan, Monika Teronpi, Ganesh Chandra Das, Srabanti Sen Gupta, Deepsikha Phukan and Leena Krishna Kakati.
The APS officers arrested are Gulshan Daolagpu, Bhargav Phukan and Pallavi Sharma.
District Transport Officer Suranjita Hazarika, Superintendent of Taxes Rituraj Neog and Inspector of Taxes Nipon Kumar Pathak were also arrested.
BJP MP Sharma reacted to his daughter’s arrest and told The Indian Express that police was “selectively targeting people”.
“I am being politically targeted to deny me a ticket in the 2019 elections. There are several candidates, who are relatives of powerful people, and their names have come up for discrepancies in the answer script, but no action has been initiated against them,” Sharma said.
Soon after his daughter was summoned, Sharma had made similar allegations, which the police and the Assam BJP unit had denied.
The main accused in the alleged scam is former APSC chief Rakesh Kumar Paul (55), who was arrested soon after investigation began in 2016. Since then, a series of raids and handwriting tests have taken place.
Prior to the fresh set of summons, several ACS and APS officers were served similar summons for handwriting tests, including relatives of several senior political leaders.
According to police sources, candidates would pay between Rs 15 lakh and Rs 30 lakh to Paul, who allegedly facilitated the replacement of their answer sheets with fake ones.
The officers who were summoned and later arrested comprised 13 Assam Civil Service (ACS) officers, three Assam Police Service (APS) officers, two tax officers and a transport officer. (Representational Image)
Share
