Guwahati, Nov. 12: Police today made the fourth arrest in the cash-for-jobs scam in the Assam Public Service Commission (APSC), on a day the demand for cancelling all appointments conducted by the commission since 2013, intensified.

A police team, led by Dibrugarh additional superintendent of police (security) Surjeet Singh Panesar, arrested assistant controller of examinations of the APSC Pabitra Kaibarta from his residence here at Hengerabari.

Sources said interrogation of APSC chairman Rakesh Kumar Paul and Samedur Rahman, an APSC member, arrested on November 4 and on Wednesday respectively, revealed Kaibarta's involvement in the scam. A racket comprising Paul, Rahman, Kaibarta and a few others in the commission allegedly provided jobs to undeserving candidates in lieu of money.

"The investigation so far has revealed that Kaibarta used to manipulate preparation of question papers and scrutiny of answer scripts in favour of candidates who offered them money. We arrested him today as we require his custodial interrogation along with Paul and Rahman," a police source said.

Kaibarta was remanded in police custody for four days by a court in Guwahati this evening. The police had sought 14 days' remand.

Paul and Rahman were arrested following the arrest of assistant engineer of the town and country-planning department, Dibrugarh, Nabakanta Patir, on October 27. Patir was caught red-handed by Dibrugarh police while accepting Rs 10 lakh from a job aspirant at his rented house in Dibrugarh.

The APSC conducts combined competitive examinations for recruitment of civil and allied services officials apart from examinations for various departments of the state government.

Fight Against Injustice in APSC, a forum of "deprived candidates" who got united on Facebook, today demanded that all appointments conducted during Paul's tenure as chairman since 2013 be cancelled for complete clean-up of the commission as well as the administration.

"As the commission had made an amendment in its procedure and conduct of business rules in 2009, making a provision that no answer scripts can be re-evaluated, Paul and his team appointed candidates who paid them money. There should be fresh appointments. Otherwise the undeserving candidates, already appointed, will carry out illegal acts and thereby will affect the administration as well as our society," Manash Pratim Baruah, one of the members of the forum, said here today.

Baruah appeared in the civil services examinations in 2013 and 2014.

Paul became a member of the APSC in 2009 and chairman in-charge in 2012. He was appointed chairman in 2013. The police today searched the flat of Paul's wife Sunanda at Srimantapur here.

The Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti, which has been demanding action against Paul since 2014, today demanded that former chief minister Tarun Gogoi and health and education minister (during his tenure) Himanta Biswa Sarma be brought under the purview of the investigation.