Fake placement racket busted, one held

Hyderabad, Aug 18 (INN): The North Zone team of the Commissioner's Task Force on Thursday busted a fake placement racket wherein innocent job seekers used to be cheated by offering jobs in leading companies.

According to police, the accused Bu Ali Asgar, a resident of Darulshifa, used to conduct fake job fairs and campus placements at various engineering colleges. He used to issue fake appointment letters of reputed software companies namely Satyam Mahindra, Sitel, Wipro, Haritas, Datamind, N Comm., HBL Technologies, Excellence India and Genpact etc.

After failing SSC exam Bu Ali Asgar worked as Home Guard in Police Department for about eight years and left the job in the year 2008. Later he completed MBA (HR) and worked in Dubai for about one year. Later he came to India and again went to USA and worked there for about two years. After returning to India, he started a consultancy in the name of Planet IT solutions at Himayatnagar, but he incurred loss and closed the same in one year.

However, while running the consultancy he came into contact with several HR managers of IT companies. As he was facing financial problems due to unemployment he came into contact with one Murtuza Siddiqi who is also suffering from same problems.

In order to come out of their financial problems they hatched a plan to cheat the managements of engineering colleges by conducting fake job fairs/campus placements and also the innocent job seekers on the pretext of providing employment in reputed software companies.

In the month of August 2010, they conducted interviews at the residence of Murtuza Siddiqui at Tolichowki and issued fake appointment letters of reputed software companies like Genpact, Sietel, Wipro to Feroz, Zameer, Abdullah, Mahboob, Suresh and Sd. Zameer and collected Rs. 20,000/- from each person. A seperate case was booked in this regard at the Golconda Police Station.

Later, Ali Asgar contacted the management of K. V. Subba Reddy Engineering College, Kurnool. He gathered some persons to act as Heads of the Human Resources Department of reputed software companies and went to Kurnool and conducted campus interviews and issued the offer letters to the selected candidates on the same day.

Murtuza collected the resumes of non-selected candidates and told them that soon they will be called to Hyderabad. After few days they called the candidates individually to Hyderabad over phone.

Whoever coming to Hyderabad was taken to near Satyam Mahindra Office at Madhapur. After collecting Rs.15,000/- each from 19 members, they gave fake appointment letters. They collected money ranging from Rs. 15,000/- to Rs. 25,000/- from each candidate.

When the candidates approached the companies for joining they came to know that, the appointment letters were fake and they were duped. Another case of cheating was registered against them at the Madapur Police Station.

They conducted similar fake job fair's at Lord's Engineering college, Himayat sagar in May this year and collected Rs 1,10,000/ from the management. The AS Rao College, Tanuku was cheated of Rs.2,35,000 in a similarly manner while management and students of Vazir sultan Uloom Engineering college, Khammam, and R.G.memorial Engineering college, Nandyal, also fell victim to their plan and lost over Rs. 5 lakh.

On a tip off, North Zone Task Force Team apprehended the accused at his residence at Darulshifa, Hyderabad. The accused along with the seized property were handed over to Golconda Police Station for further investigation.