Guwahati: Police today arrested Assam Civil Service (ACS) official Rajarshi Sen Deka, son of Congress leader and former Cabinet minister Nilamani Sen Deka, on charges of securing his job through illegal means.
Deka was arrested after he surrendered before police at the headquarters of the special branch of Assam police here at Kahilipara this morning.
He had been evading arrest since last Wednesday when the police began arrests of ACS, Assam Police Service (APS) and allied services officers of the 2013 batch for allegedly securing jobs through the Assam Public Service Commission (APSC) by committing fraud in collusion with former APSC chairman Rakesh Kumar Paul.
Deka, who is posted as the circle officer of Mushalpur revenue circle in Baksa district, was produced before the court of the special judge, Assam, A. Bhattacharyya, who remanded him in 14 days' police custody.
Though Deka's counsel objected to the plea made by investigating officer of this case and Dibrugarh additional superintendent of police Surjeet Singh Panesar for police custody, the judge overruled it saying he had minutely perused the case diary and there was sufficient material against Deka.
On the accused's bail petition, the judge said that it would be considered on completion of his police remand.
With Deka's arrest, the total number of officers arrested in this case since Wednesday has gone up to 22.
"Three officers are currently absconding and efforts are on to arrest them," special public prosecutor of this case Bijon Mahajan said.
The three absconding officers are Rumi Saikia and Nisha Moni Deka (ACS), and Rakesh Gupta (APS).
"Two of the officers are suspected to have fled the state while another one is likely to surrender in a day or two," a police source said.
According to police, forensic examination has confirmed anomalies in the answer scripts of these officers.
"Their answer scripts seized from the APSC office were found to be duplicate and the signatures of the invigilators/scrutinisers forged during examination by forensic experts," the source said.
The original answer scripts of the accused were replaced by duplicate ones by fraudulently increasing their marks to help them clear the APSC recruitment test, the police said.
The case was registered by Dibrugarh police in October 2016, when a job aspirant, Anshumita Gogoi, lodged a complaint that Nabakanta Patir, an engineer, has offered her a government job through APSC if she pays a bribe of Rs 10 lakh. The police laid a trap and caught Patir red-handed while accepting money from Anshumita and based on Paitr's confession, Rakesh Kumar Paul was arrested last year.
