Gang helping Nepalis get job in Indian army busted

LUCKNOW: With the arrest of a key operator in Varanasi, the UP anti-terror squad (ATS) on Tuesday claimed to have busted a network involved in recruitment of Nepali youths into Indian Army by preparing their forged documents posing them as Indian nationals. The ATS suspects that the arrested key operator, Chandra Bahadur Khatri, had recruited many Nepali youths in the past 6-7 years on the basis of forged documents.

LUCKNOW: With the arrest of a key operator in Varanasi, the UP anti-terror squad (ATS) on Tuesday claimed to have busted a network involved in recruitment of Nepali youths into Indian Army by preparing their forged documents posing them as Indian nationals.

The ATS suspects that the arrested key operator, Chandra Bahadur Khatri, had gotten many Nepali youths recruited in the past 6-7 years on the basis of forged documents.

The ATS sleuths have sought his five-day police remand from a court after bringing him to Lucknow.

ATS Inspector General (IG), Asim Arun, said Khatri is a Nepali citizen and had served in Indian Army for around nine years before being terminated in 1991.

While Khatri was recruited to Gorkha regiment in 1982 from Gorakhapur his father, Bheem Bahadur Khatri, was also ex-army personnel of Gorkha regiment.

Khatri’s name surfaced after arrest of a Nepali youth Vishnu Lal Bhattarai from Varanasi on Sunday night, Asim said adding that Bhattarai was recruited into the army at 39 Gorkha Training Centre, Varanasi on the identity of a Jaunpur resident Dilip Giri a few years ago.

“This case is of recruitment on forged documents as well as identity theft as person of same identity exists,” he said.

He said two more armymen-Shivansh Baliyan and Manoj Kumar Basnet-- were also recruited on forged identities from the same centre.

Asim said Baliyan, who is posted in 4/3 Gorakha Rifles, and Basnet, who is posted in 2/3 Gorkha Rifles in Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, are missing after taking leave from their duties.

“Raids are on with help of army to arrest them,” he said adding that “All the three Nepali youths got recruited into the army by Khatri and there could be many more such recruitments.”

Earlier, the ATS had registered an FIR of fraud and forgery with the ATS police station in Lucknow on October 10 after getting specific inputs about the recruitment through illegal process.