In a major decision, the Uttar Pradesh government had last night

suspended 12 senior Indian Police Services(IPS) officers in the State for their involvement in police recruitment scam during the previous Mulayam Singh Yadav regime and anulled 14 recruitment boards in which a total of 6504 civil police and PAC constables were recruited.

With this, the government also cancelled the recruitments of 6504 policemen selected by these boards.

The government said a departmental enquiry would be initiated against these officials. FIRs wil be lodged against them and the Anti-Corruption Organisation (ACO) will further investigate the scam,'' the government had said. The report on the other 41 recruitment boards will be presented before the government by the end of the month.

''All those whose recruitment has been cancelled will be given a fair chance to participate in the new recruitment process...Those who have committed fraud will face the music,'' he said. While 5723 candidates were selected for civil police, 781 were selected for the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC).

The State Government also promised to set up new recruitment boards within six months.

''The scam was very serious in nature as the probe committee found. While in several cases, candidates had furnished fake high school certificates, we also found that answer sheets were re-written to help the favoured candidates...hand writing experts have proved this,'' State principal secretary (Home) J N Chamber had said.

Altogether over 22,000 policemen were recruited during the previous Samajwadi Party regime between the year 2004 and 2006 and several irregularities were detected during the probe conducted by the present Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government when it came to power in May last.

UNI