Bhubaneswar: The Crime Branch has arrested the mastermind of the SI recruitment scam, Shankar Prusty, in Uttarakhand on the India-Nepal border. Prusty, wanted by the Crime Branch, had been absconding since the scam was exposed and was hiding on the Nepal border.
Three Teams of Crime Branch were conducting operations at various places to arrest Prusty. With the fresh arrest, the number of middlemen arrested in the racket reached 10.
After arresting him, he is being taken back to Odisha on transit remand for further investigation. Earlier, the Crime Branch had arrested two main associates of Shankar Prusty, identified as Muna Mohanty and Rinku Moharana.
The two accused were approaching SI exam candidates on behalf of Shankar. The examination, conducted by the Odisha Police Recruitment Board (OPRB), was awarded to ITI Limited, a central PSU based in Kolkata. The public-sector undertaking subcontracted the work to Bhubaneswar-based Silicon Techlab, and key tasks were given to Panchsoft Technologies, headed by Shankar.
Investigation revealed that Shankar had planned to take the candidates to Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, and Chhattisgarh to provide them ‘training’, just a few days before the now-postponed Combined Police Service Examination (CPSE) 2024.
