Odisha crime branch finds UP board links in fake certificate scam

BHUBANESWAR: Odisha Crime Branch which is investigating the Department of Posts recruitment scam has apparently established links of the prime accused with staff of Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Sikhya Parishad for procurement of the certificates as well as rigging the verification process.

Sources said the agency was initially suspecting that the main suspect Manoj Mishra printed fake certificates as well as mark sheets in the state but later ascertained his links with officials of the Uttar Pradesh board. Separate teams of the Crime Branch recently visited UP, Delhi, Punjab and Jharkhand as the postal department recruitment scam has pan-India links.

Sources said the agency has now information on officials of UP Madhyamik Sikhya Parishad who are possibly hand-in-glove with Mishra. They, however, are yet to ascertain whether the board’s officials purportedly having links with Mishra are in the junior or senior levels of the administration.

“There is a strong suspicion that whenever any certificate or mark sheet was sent to UP for verification, some of the board officials sent those documents back to Mishra,” said sources. Those having nexus with Mishra managed to receive the fake documents before those could be verified by officials concerned of the board. The fake documents were then sent back to the postal department in the state with a genuine tag. Sources said a Crime Branch team may again visit Uttar Pradesh as part of the investigation.

The fraud had come to the fore after the Department of Posts began verifying certificates of applicants for various Gram Dak Seva (GDS) posts in Balangir district where 37 candidates were found to have scored very high marks in various subjects. All these candidates had furnished certificates from the UP board which prompted the officials to flag the cases.

About 1,500 to 2,000 fake certificates of various boards of secondary education and universities in Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan and Sikkim were seized from Mishra.
Sources said he sold the fake certificates for Rs 50,000 to Rs 5 lakh to job aspirants in Balangir, Bargarh, Kalahandi, Boudh, Sonepur, Dhenkanal and other parts of the country. Balangir Police had earlier arrested at least 19 people including Mishra and his associate Alok Udgata.

In Odisha, over 1,100 candidates were selected by the Department of Posts for GDS jobs which included posts of branch postmaster, assistant postmaster and dak sevak for which written/viva tests are not conducted and Class X marks are the only eligibility.