Police arrests DTO Prasenjit Ghosh

CASH-FOR-JOB SCAM

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI, April 9: The Dibrugarh Police on Monday arrested the controversial Sonitpur District Transport Officer, Prasenjit Ghosh, on charges of his involvement in the cash-for-job scam in the APSC. 

With the arrest of Ghosh, the number of ACS and APS officers arrested for their involvement in the multi-crore-rupee scam has gone up to 35. Ghosh, who had appeared for the Combined Competitive Examitions (CCE) for ACS and allied services conducted by the APSC in 2014, was earlier serving as DTO (Enforcement) in Kamrup metropolitan district before being transferred to Sonitpur on March 11. Sources said Ghosh was close to the arrested former APSC chairperson Rakesh Paul, the kingpin of the cash-for-job scam, and allegedly resorted to unfair practices to clear the CCE. The Dibrugarh Police had collected Ghosh’s samples of handwriting from official documents and sent those to forensic test. The test confirmed similarity of Ghosh handwriting with those with the duplicate answer scripts that he had written the in APSC examitions.   

Interestingly, the CID quizzed Ghosh on March 7 in connection with the coal syndicate racket. He was quizzed after two overloaded coal-laden trucks passed the Koidhara check post at Khapara on March 1 this year without any valid document. The check post was then under the jurisdiction of Ghosh. The CID eventually seized the two trucks. 

Ghosh is likely to be produced before the Special Court here on Tuesday.