Hyderabad: A senior officer working with Singareni Collieries Co Ltd (SCCL) is among three persons apprehended on Wednesday for allegedly cheating some 60 unemployed youths of thousands of rupees on the pretext of getting them jobs in the coal mining PSU.

Acting on a credible piece of information, the sleuths of Commissioner's Task Force (South Zone) nabbed Kiran Kumar, a Senior Accounts Officer working with SCCL; Mothe Ramesh, a car driver; and Shatam Ramesh, a System Operator with a private firm, police said. They also seized Rs 2 lakh in cash, three cellphones and a set of question paper booklets from them, they said.

Three agents - Manmohan, Rasheed and Komaraiah - who are also part of this job racket involving thousands of rupees are absconding, said N Koti Reddy, Additional Deputy Commissioner (Commissioner's Task Force).

According to police, SCCL (located at Kothagudem in Khammam district of Telangana) had issued an employment notification against 48 vacancies of Surveyor Trainees and 8 other posts. As many as 9,644 hall tickets were issued to eligible candidates. But a written test which was scheduled for last month, was postponed on administrative grounds.

By taking advantage of the notification, the prime accused Kiran Kumar planned to cheat innocent unemployed youths, Reddy said. Kumar discussed the plan with two of his other associates and booked rooms in different hotels here and gathered the youths, who had applied for the posts. Kumar promised the aspirants to get them jobs in the PSU and made them believe he is well connected to the higher ups in SCCL, Reddy said.

He collected sums of Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 from each candidates as advance, the senior officer said. After collection of the advance amount, the accused gave the candidates model question paper booklets for preparation of the examination. The accused persons lured the candidates with false promises to provide `Survey or Trainee Posts and cheated them intentionally to make gains illegally, Reddy added.

PTI