25 arrested incl 14 policemen in Pune fake sports certificate racket for government jobs

Twenty-five people, including 14 policemen, have been arrested in Pune in a case of fake Kurash and dragon boat certificates made to secure government jobs. The action has caused a stir in the police department. The investigation has found that the 5 per cent reservation kept for sports in government jobs was misused, and that people were recruited into the police and other government departments on the strength of fake certificates.

Pune Police's Crime Branch has busted this large racket that got people government jobs through fake sports certificates. Police suspect that more than 1,500 fake Kurash certificates were distributed over the past 10 years. Two office-bearers of the Maharashtra Kurash association have also been arrested in the racket.

So far, cases have been registered against 41 people, of whom 25 have been arrested. They include 14 police personnel, and some of the accused have been sent to Yerawada jail. Some of the arrested policemen had completed training and joined duty, while some had been recruited recently. After the scam came to light, it has been decided to dismiss 19 candidates who used the fake certificates.

The accused candidates had obtained the certificates without actually taking part in any sports competition. It is also emerging that people got jobs in other government departments, not only the police, with these fake certificates. Police are therefore writing to the departments concerned and taking further legal action.

After their names surfaced in the case, five to six newly recruited police personnel have absconded from various training centres and from their homes. Details of the absconding accused have been sent to all police units and training centres in the state, and Crime Branch teams have set out to trace them.

The scam is not limited to police recruitment. There is suspicion that jobs were also grabbed on these bogus certificates in the revenue, agriculture and other government departments. The Crime Branch is therefore writing to other departments to get checks carried out. Whether anyone was recruited to Class 1 and Class 2 posts through the Maharashtra Public Service Commission on such bogus certificates is also being examined. The role of the government officials in the office of the deputy director of sports who approved the certificates as genuine is also considered suspicious, and police are questioning them.

The fake certificates submitted by the candidates were shown to be from competitions held in 2018-19. But while preparing them, the fraudsters printed the new names of districts such as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (earlier Aurangabad) and Dharashiv (earlier Osmanabad). The Maharashtra government changed the names of these districts in 2023. Sports verification officials doubted how a 2018 certificate could carry names changed in 2023. This one mistake exposed the scam.

When police began the investigation, they found that no authorised competition had been held at all between 2016 and 2023. The certificates were sold after fake records with back dates were got made through district associations. The probe also found that agents and Kurash association office-bearers were charging candidates Rs 3 lakh to Rs 5 lakh for each certificate to help them get the benefit of the 5 per cent sports quota in government jobs.