APSC scam: MP's daughter, 18 more officials summoned

Guwahati | Monday | 16th July, 2018

Summary:

Prior to this the police had conducted similar tests which had resulted in the arrest of a number of officials. Action will be taken based on the findings." GUWAHATI: The Dibrugarh Police, who are probing the cash-for-job scam in the Assam Public Service Commission (APSC), have summoned 19 more government officials, including police service recruit Pallavi Sharma, daughter of BJP MP ( Tezpur ) R P Sharma, to appear for handwriting tests after forensic examination of their answer sheets reportedly indicated several anomalies.Those who were served with summons include three state police officers, including Sharma, 13 civil service officials and three allied service officials.This is not the first time that names of APSC candidates having strong political connections have surfaced during the probe. Dibrugarh Police have been serving summons to several officials to appear for similar tests under suspicion that they had paid huge sums to key accused Rakesh Paul, the former APSC chairman, to forge their selection tests with fake answer scripts.Investigations revealed how prime accused Paul would supply fake answer sheets to several candidates to rewrite their answers after the real examination was over, which would then replace their original answer scripts. Earlier, high-profile candidates like Rajarshi Sen Deka, a civil servant and son of former agriculture minister Nilamani Sen Deka, BJP member Sumitra Doley's kin Geetali Doley and Sunayana Aidew, niece of BJP MP Rajen Gohain , were arrested in connection with the case.Additional SP Dibrugarh Police, Surjeet Singh Panesar, who is heading the probe, said, "All the candidates were from the 2016 batch and were asked to appear for the test at police special bureau headquarters in Guwahati on July 18 morning..