Joint director under investigation in edu dept recruitment scam

Nagpur: An official of joint director rank in the education department, now posted in Mumbai, is under the scanner for involvement in the recruitment, posting, and promotion scam related to fake Shalarth IDs over a period of last five years. The scamsters, creating fake Shalarth IDs with bogus documents, fleeced the state coffers to the tune of crores of rupees, said police.

On Wednesday, the Sadar police team under senior inspector Manish Thakare and Zonal DCP Rahul Madane conducted a search at a cyber cafe in Jaripatka, where the accused clerk Mahendra Mhaiskar used to create fake documents like experience certificates, proposals for recruitment, and postings along with promotions to teachers and assistant teachers. Around 68 files were found in one of the computer systems under the file name ‘Mhaiskar', said a source, adding the cyber cafe owner identified Mhaiskar as the one who visited his outlet regularly. Sources said Mhaiskar used to visit the cafe late in the evening and created the fake documents with the help of the employees working at the outlet.

Meanwhile, sources from Sadar police station said teams may soon leave for Mumbai to round up the joint director, who was posted in Bhandara when the scam unfurled around five years ago. Police said the then senior education department official was part of the nexus that created fake documents. The education officer from Bhandara later got promoted to joint director and moved to Mumbai.

Apart from the joint director, another former zilla parishad education department official is also under the scanner for his role in ensuring the fake documents were regularised with official authorisation. Sources from Sadar police station said the joint director and the ZP official were the ones who also helped Bhandara headmaster Parag Pudke, who is now behind bars along with deputy director of education Ulhas Narad, Nilesh Meshram, Mhaiskar, Suraj Naik, and Sanjay Bodhadkar.