UP recruits allege sexual abuse

LUCKNOW: The state government on Sunday annulled the recruitment of 7,400 constables and placed seven more IPS officers including VK Bhalla, an additional director general-rank officer, under suspension for heading selection boards at different centres.

FIRs under relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act were also lodged against the suspended officers and 40 state police service officers who were members of the selection boards.

This is the third round of suspensions and annulment of recruitments made during the previous Mulayam Singh Yadav regime by the Mayawati government since the beginning of this month. The total number of IPS officers suspended now stands at 25 and constable-appointments annulled at 17,868.

What comes as a shock this time is that ADG special task force Shailja Kant Mishra, who is reviewing the report submitted by 18 selection boards, has talked about instances of sexual abuse of women candidates before recruitment.

Mishra told reporters on Sunday: "In my three decades of service, never have I come across such a recruitment process in which girl candidates have been allegedly sexually exploited before being selected." He said that this was told to him by some of the girls who refused to give in to such demands. "With tears rolling down their cheeks, some of them narrated their woes to me. Well, I don’t have any proof of it at the moment but all these things would certainly be investigated threadbare," said the ADG.

Principal secretary (home) JN Chamber told reporters here on Sunday that the decision to cancel the recruitment was taken after largescale irregularities were detected in the selection process of all of these selection boards.