A trainee constable who resigned in the wake of the recruitment scam in Calcutta police by saying he wanted to be a graduate possibly blew the whistle on himself in his hurry to escape the probe.

The detective department withheld the unnamed trainee on learning that his resignation came days after the arrest of Debasis Manna, who had made the grade by having a dummy candidate represent him in the recruitment test. It has since been confirmed that four more — Tanmoy Roy, Sanjay Prasad, Aniruddha Mahapatra and Subhasis Das — were selected without appearing for the test.

All five paid money to the same racketeers, two dismissed policemen who would charge Rs 1.5-3 lakh each and arrange for dummy candidates with the build and stamina required of an applicant.

An officer said the father of the constable who resigned was summoned to the Police Training School on Tuesday to find out whether the reason cited by him was genuine. “We have not accepted his resignation. A probe is on to find out exactly why he resigned because it happened after we unearthed the scam. He may have panicked when we arrested Manna a fortnight ago.”

The scam masterminds — Bappa and Gopal Das — were constables before being dismissed from service in 2006.

“We are searching for Bappa and Gopal. We will be able to get to the bottom of the scam only after they are arrested,” Jawed Shamim, the deputy commissioner of the detective department, said.

Manna was caught when the police officers he had gone to for his appointment letter noticed that his physical stature did not match the vital statistics mentioned in his documents.

The minimum height of a constable should be 5 feet 6 inches, his weight 54 kg and chest 32 inches. He should be able to run 100 metres in 14 seconds and 800 metres in 2 minutes and 40 seconds.