Main accused in job racket held

BHUBANESWAR: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested Samir Kumar, one of the principal accused in a racket which duped unemployed youths of several crores of rupees by assuring them jobs in the Railways.A CBI team from Bhubaneswar arrested Kumar from Ranchi. He had evaded the agency for about three years before the law caught up with him.The case dates back to 2009. Kumar and four others had run a racket in Orissa promising jobs to youths. They had taken huge amount of money from the hapless candidates stating that they were close to the railway top brass."Some of the aspirants paid up to Rs 3 lakh while some ended up paying about Rs 70,000," the CBI sources said. Kumar and his gang dropped big names of the Railway Ministry to lure the youths. The gang is believed to have made anything between Rs 2 to 3 crore.“In fact, they even offered training to some of the candidates and paid stipend from the money they had collected before making a vanishing act,” the CBI sources said.Of the five accused, three are from Orissa. Kumar belongs to Bihar’s Patna while another accused is from Assam. The central agency had submitted chargesheets in the case last year. With Kumar, the total number of arrests in the case stands at four. The fifth one, a resident of Dhenkanal, continues to be at large.