By IANS,
Chandigarh : The police here have given a questionnaire to the director public instruction (schools) Samwartak Singh in their ongoing probe into the teachers’ recruitment scam in which he may be a suspect, officials said here Saturday.
“We have sent a questionnaire to Samwartak Singh and asked him to submit a written reply to all the questions. He is expected to submit his reply by Monday,” Madhur Verma, superintendent of police (city), told IANS.
“During the interrogation, one of the arrested accused told police that he was in regular touch with Singh. However, we cannot reach any conclusion just on this basis. Our investigation is on and if we find any foul play by this official, then we will also inform the senior officials,” he said.
Samwartak Singh, who also handles additional charge of director, tourism department here, is a Haryana cadre civil services officer on deputation in Chandigarh with the education department. He has not attended his office for the last four days.
Police sources told IANS that the questionnaire consisted of 25 to 30 questions based on Samwartak’s possible links to one of the accused; his reason for calling the arrested accused on his mobile phone and about the selection procedure of candidates.
Police had arrested two men Sep 5 after they called up a woman and offered to get her the post of teacher in the ongoing recruitment process of the Chandigarh education board.
The education department had recently conducted the written test and the interviews were yet to take place. The touts demanded Rs.400,000 from Kamalpreet Kaur for ensuring her success in interview. However, she informed the police and the two were arrested.
The accused have been identified as Jolly, a Chandigarh resident, and Hardev Singh, a resident of Kharar town in Punjab, some 20 km from here.
During the interrogation, Jolly told police that he was in constant touch with Samwartak Singh, and called the woman on his asking. He said that the official had also provided him the list of other candidates.
While scrutinizing the previous call details, police found that Samwartak Singh had long conversations with Jolly several times.
His links with the accused strengthened in the wake of the fact that Jolly was also given some contractual work by the tourism department, which he also headed, a few months back.