Custodial interrogation of nine army exam aspirants for allegedly committing fraud and cheating in the recruitment test conducted by officials of the Indian Army Ammunition Depot at Central Ordnance Depot in Delhi Cantonment. On July 24, the nine men were caught and handed over to the Delhi Police the next day. The recruitment officials discovered their fake identity during the physical eligibility test to several openings for the posts of Tradesman Mate. They admitted appearing in the enrolment exam on behalf of other candidates.

The nine dummy candidates had reportedly cleared all the other stages of recruitment examinations. When they were called for the physical exam, they were quite in doubt about it. The supervisors, while checking the documents of the candidates realised that nine aspirants in the physical test are different than those who sat for the written examination. It was further reported that the dummy candidates were interviewed and during cross-questioning, confessed that they appeared on someone else’s behalf.

The frauds have been identified as Kehar Singh, Sheelesh, Avnish Kumar, Ramavtar, Sonu, Deepak, Sandeep Kumar, Naval Kishor and Bantu. Seven hails from Firozabad district in Uttar Pradesh while two are from Agra and Jind, Haryana. The investigations are on, and police officials are looking if there are more people involved in the racket.

Dummy candidates appearing in the recruitment exams have been reported a number of times. In February this year, a silent march by several government job aspirants was held in Maharashtra of demands that include the use of biometric-based attendance in recruitment exams and installation of mobile phone jammers at exam centres. But it seems that rigorous effort by the government cannot stop cheaters. Earlier this month, in Maharashtra, while conducting an exam for recruiting constable, caught and arrested five dummy candidates from many locations.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 26, 2018 09:21 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).