As many as10 people have been arrested by three IPS officers for allegedly accepting bribes from aspirants who sought jobs as assistant teachers for 69,000 posts in the UP basic education department.
Imagine a person scoring 95 per cent marks in UP assistant teachers‘ recruitment examination and then failing to name the President of India when asked.
This may seem unthinkable but one Dharmendra Patel, who scored 142 out of 150 marks in the highly-competitive exam, could not answer this basic question.
Upon receiving the information, three IPS officers captain Satyarth Anirudh Pankaj, Ashok Venkatesh, and Anil Yadav raided in connection with a bribing and corruption case and exposed the scam.
The Prayagraj police arrested 10 people involved for allegedly accepting bribes from aspirants who sought jobs as assistant teachers. It has been learnt that the police have recovered cash worth Rs 22 lakh and two luxury cars from the accused.
The main accused has been identified as KL Patel, a former zila panchayat member, who reportedly runs many educational institutions. The case was handed over to the Special Task Force (STF) after the Yogi Adityanath government on Tuesday ordered an STF probe into the teachers’ recruitment scam in the state.
Addressing a press conference in Lucknow, UP basic education minister Satish Dwivedi said, “The probe began after one of the applicants named Rahul filed a complaint with the police of bribes being taken for recruitment. The Prayagraj police immediately acted on the complaint and arrested KL Patel and 9 others for accepting bribes. The government has ordered an STF probe into the matter.”
“We have done the recruitment process according to the guidelines and the procedures. The counselling has been stopped for now as the Allahabad High Court issued a stay on the appointment process of 69,000 assistant basic education teachers on June 3. We filed a special appeal against the single bench order and the HC has reserved the judgement. We will abide by whatever the court decides on the selection process. However, some people who have a family history of being involved in corruption are playing politics over the recruitment unnecessarily,” said Dwivedi targeting the opposition.
Speaking to the media, SSP Prayagraj Satyartha Anirudh Pankaj said, “The main accused has been identified as KL Patel, a former Zila panchayat member and cash worth over Rs 22 lakh has been recovered from the arrested person.”
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, on the other hand, termed the teacher’s irregularity scam as Vyapam scam which happened in Madhya Pradesh. She had an interaction with candidates through a video conference who raised questions on the selection process and targeted the government.
“I came to know this morning that the topper was arrested. If the exam was conducted fairly then why are arrests being made? The UP government doesn’t let you raise your voice even when scams and corruption are taking place. Is the CM taking responsibility? There should be transparent and concrete action,” said Vadra.
