A retired officer from Assam’s Indian Police Service was arrested on Tuesday a month after he was named as the main defendant in a job recruitment scam. PK Dutta had been on the run since the Assam government canceled a written exam to recruit police deputy inspectors after their question paper was leaked on social media last month.
“Dutta has been detained at the Indo-Nepal international border thanks to a surveillance circular issued by Assam’s criminal investigation department (CID),” Assam police said in the statement. “Now he has been handed over to the West Bengal police. The Assam police would take him into custody in due course and bring him to Assam. “
Dutta was arrested in Kakarbhitta, on the Nepalese side of the India-Nepal border, while on his way to Assam by road. His son-in-law, a Nepalese citizen, accompanied him.
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An Assam police team was expected to search for Dutta Traffic Pretrial Prison to take him to Assam.
An associate is believed to have helped Dutta and her son on 23 September to Siliguri in West Bengal, where they spent a night in a hotel. Dutta’s son-in-law is believed to have helped the two to enter Nepal the next day.
Dutta and the leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata party, Diban Deka, are suspected of having secured jobs for many candidates in lieu of cash. It is alleged that Deka obtained the questionnaire prior to the written test.
A police investigation has revealed that one day before the September 20 test, many candidates had taken a mock exam at a Guwahati hotel. Nearly 70 of these candidates were staying at one of Dutta’s five hotels in Guwahati.
The police had issued surveillance circulars for both Dutta and Deka and alerted the income tax department, the Directorate of Enforcement and the Department of Revenue Intelligence after unearthing many properties belonging to the police officer.
On September 30, Deka, who unsuccessfully ran as a BJP candidate in 2011, was arrested. He was later expelled from the party.
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