Kotwali police personnel take away a racketeer (in blue T-shirt) in Patna on Thursday. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

Patna, Aug. 25: The mad scramble for decent jobs saw police bust two fake employment rackets in the state capital today, taking the number of rackets exposed in the past seven months in the state to 29.

In the first instance, a fake job racket was busted after 20 youths lodged a complaint with Patliputra police station against a company, HB Entertainment Private Limited. The victims all hailed from different places of the state.

“According to the complaint, the company, which claimed to have its offices in Pune and in Patliputra area, announced the launch of a satellite channel, Hamni Bhojpuria, and advertised 1,700 vacancies for the posts of software engineers and assistant business managers. The firm took Rs 15,000 and Rs 20,000 from each of the applicants for recruiting them as business managers and software engineers respectively,” city superintendent of police (central) Shivdeep Lande told The Telegraph.

The recruitments were made from several places, including Patna, Calcutta, Delhi and Pune among others.

“A training session was held at a hotel in Karol Bagh, New Delhi, for the same. After taking around Rs 2.95 crore from the aspirants, all company representatives absconded. An FIR has been lodged based on the complaints and investigations are being carried out,” the officer said.

Another job racket was busted in Kotwali police station area and one of the racketeers arrested. Around 15 job seekers from Punjab caught hold of one Ajay Singh, a pawn of the racket. The representatives had published advertisements in many dailies offering 2,220 vacancies in Hindustan Petroleum.

“The racketeers took an office in Bhuvneshwar Plaza Building near Patna Junction on rent. A sum of Rs 10,000 was taken from each of the aspirants and medical examination conducted on them. They were promised jobs in a company, Hindustan Petroleum Services, with Patna as its base. The aspirants decided to go to Danapur to Hindustan Petroleum office for a check,” Lande said.