The Salt Lake house from where Gopal Das was arrested. Picture by Aranya Sen

Calcutta police are saddled with over 50 unidentified constables who would have never worn the white uniform had they not paid dummy candidates to represent them in recruitment tests held in the past four years.

The detective department arrived at a “rough” estimate of the scale of the recruitment scam after the arrest of Gopal Das, one of the kingpins of the racket, on Friday evening.

“It is too early to get the exact number of people who entered the force by fielding dummy candidates. We are interrogating Gopal for more details,” Jawed Shamim, the deputy commissioner of the detective department, said.

Other sources in the department said the number would be in excess of 50.

Gopal and his partner-in-deceit Bappa, both former constables dismissed from service, would charge Rs 2.5-4 lakh from any candidate (previously estimated to be Rs 1.5-3 lakh) who wanted a job in the constabulary without appearing for the recruitment test.

The police have arrested 12 people so far, including assistant sub-inspector Nanda Kumar Pal and six constables who were selected during the last round of recruitment.

Pal had been posted in the Central Reserve Office and given the task of verifying whether those who had reported for police training were actually those who took the last recruitment test in January. He allowed some recruits to join the Police Training School despite noticing that the personal information mentioned in official records were those of the dummy candidates and not of the recruits standing before him.

Gopal was arrested at the Salt Lake residence of an aide, Nirmal Kumar Biswas. “Acting on a tip-off, we arrested Nirmal on Friday morning and learnt about Das’s whereabouts,” Shamim said.

Nirmal, who runs a car rental agency, used to arrange for the dummy candidates, while Gopal and Bappa ensured that their bluff was not called during the test.

“We have learnt from Gopal that he and Bappa fell out recently over sharing the spoils of the scam. We are checking their financial position,” a senior officer said.

The police are looking for Santosh Yadav, a constable in the women’s cell of the CID. She aroused suspicion by going on leave after the scam was busted.

“Pal had mentioned Santosh and Gopal confirmed it. Gopal’s arrest is critical to the case. We expect him to give us more information on how he, Bappa and others manipulated the system,” the officer said.