Recruitment Scam: Job Seekers From TN Made To Count Trains At New Delhi Railway Station, Duped Of Rs 2.67 Cr

Ignorant of the fact that they were the victims of an employment scam, at least 28 people from Tamil Nadu (TN) were deployed to maintain a tally of the arrival and departure of trains and their coaches on different platforms of the New Delhi Railway Station. They followed, keeping the count every day for eight hours for a month.

According to a complaint registered with the Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW), each TN resident paid amounts ranging from ₹2 lakh to ₹24 lakh to get jobs in the Indian Railways. Further, they were informed that it was part of their training for the posts of travel ticket examiner (TTE), traffic assistant, and clerk in the Railways.

What Do The Victims Have To Say?

M Subbusamy, a 78-year-old ex-serviceman, filed a complaint which notes that the victims were duped ₹2.67 crores for the one-month training between June and July. The ex-serviceman only had introduced the victims to the alleged scammers, but he claimed that he was unaware that the entire setup was a fraud and that he, too, had fallen prey to their trap, reported The Print.

Most of the victims are well-educated people with graduation background in engineering and technical education. Snethil Kumar, a 25-year-old victim from Madurai, said, "Each candidate paid money ranging from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 24 lakh to Subbusamy, who further paid these to a person named Vikas Rana. Rana posed as a deputy director in the Northern Railway office in Delhi". He added that everyone underwent the same kind of training, which involved counting trains at stations; however, the training sum differed for different posts such as TTE, traffic assistant, or clerk.

Railways Procedure Followed For Scam To Look Legit

As per the FIR, after paying the money as facilitation charges, the fraudsters called these prospective candidates for other tests and requirement stages similar to Railways to make the scam look legit. The fraudsters conducted their medical tests at the Railway Central Hospital, Connaught Place (CP), and verified documents on various dates at the office of the Junior Engineer, Northern Railway, Shankar Market in New Delhi.

Subbusamy alleged in the FIR, "After document verification, Mr Vikas Rana and Mr Dubey, one of his associates, took all the candidates to Baroda House for issuing study material and kit and also issued them forged/fabricated orders for training, which obviously we realised very late, only sometime back, when we attempted to verify its authenticity."

In its preliminary investigation, the EOW has found that it was an employment fraud, and further probe is ongoing. Yogesh Baweja, the Additional Director General for Media and Communication in the Ministry of Railways, stated that the Railway Board had regularly issued advisories and alerted the common people against such fraudulent practices.

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