Pune Police Issues 1,000 Bogus Certificates To Get Government Jobs From Sports Quota: Big Scam Busted

The Pune police have busted a scam of issuing over 1000 fake certificates of Kurash competition to aspiring candidates seeking government jobs under the sports quota and two persons have been arrested in the case. The accused had prepared tampered records for a state-level competition that was never held. The police have identified at least 60 candidates who submitted these bogus documents for government jobs. Kurash is a form of upright jacket wrestling that originated in Central Asia. It is an internationally recognised sport and has been played in Maharashtra since 2012 under the Kurash Association of Maharashtra, police said. The police had received a complaint that fake certificates were issued in Kurash and other sports for candidates who wanted government jobs under the sports quota, which the police unearthed by investigating the scam. "After receiving the complaint, we started verifying the documents," an official said. The documents obtained through the RTI application were also examined and several discrepancies were found. Notably, competitions were held between 2016 and 2019 by organisations not affiliated to the India Kurash Association and the signatures on the certificates were scanned and arranged, the investigation revealed. The accused had obtained letters of participation from the district level organisation with dates dating back to 9 to 10 years to show that the competition was held between 2016 and 2022. Dharashiv and Osmanabad scam The discrepancies showed the name of the district as Dharashiv instead of Osmanabad in the certificates issued in 2016-17. Notably, Osmanabad was renamed as Dharashiv in 2023. Similarly, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar was found to be mentioned on the certificates issued from Aurangabad district last year, the official said. Investigation in the police department The accused are being interrogated intensively. Other evidence is being collected to find out how widespread the scam is. It is also being probed whether anyone has got a job in the police department on the basis of such duplicate or fake certificates, the official said. Men's name on women's category The investigation into the scam also revealed that the certificates for the women's category had the names of men, while many of the certificates did not mention serial numbers. The scam started in 2016 and more than 1000 certificates were issued since then, the official said. So far, 60 such bogus certificates issued for jobs in various government departments have been detected. This figure is likely to increase as the investigation progresses.