Karnataka: Minister's ex-staffer who conned 12 job aspirants of Rs 25 lakh held

BENGALURU: A 43-year-old man from Belagavi has been arrested on charges of producing at least 63 fake appointment letters in the name of the department of animal husbandry and taking around Rs 25 lakh from 12 aspirants who had been promised jobs in the department.
The accused, Jnanadev Jhadhav, was among the staffers of animal husbandry minister Prabhu Chauhan in 2020 and 2021, preliminary probe revealed. After quitting the job for personal reasons, Jhadhav had settled in Belagavi, police sources said.
Investigation showed Jhadhav had taken around Rs 25 lakh from 12 men in Belagavi and nearby places, promising them jobs as first and second-division assistants in the department. However, he told cops he had repaid some of the job aspirants when they threatened to file police complaint after realising he had made false promises.
The cheating came to light when joint commissioner, department of animal husbandry, N Ramesh, filed a complaint with Sanjaynagar police, accusing unidentified miscreants of producing fake appointment letters with forged signatures of minister Prabhu Chauhan and other senior staffers.
Ramesh's complaint stated that copies of such fake appointment letters had reached the office of chief minister Basavaraj Bommai too. "To win the confidence of his victims, Jhadhav had forged documents like notifications, which announced there are 93 FDA and SDA vacant posts. Also, he created fake appointment letters in the names of these 63 persons and handed 12 to persons from whom he had taken money," police sources said According to police, Jhadhav knew that it was a matter of time when those he had cheated would realise they had been issued fake letters. He hatched another plan. He prepared a fresh notification inviting objections from the public for the appointments. His plan was to tell his victims that their jobs were ready but were withdrawn after objections from the public, the sources explained.
However, the fake notification only fuelled suspicion among a few job aspirants, who visited the office of the department in the last week of July and discovered the fraud, the sources said.