The Meerut unit of UP Special Task Force (STF) arrested an army havildar for allegedly duping aspirants on the false promises of recruitment under the Agniveer scheme by helping them in passing the strenuous medical examination, officials said on Wednesday.

The accused Naresh, a resident of village Masouta in district Ghaziabad, who happens to be a serving  havildar, was arrested by the Meerut STF from Garh Road under Sadar Bazar police station area of the district following inputs by Military Intelligence on Tuesday evening. The trap was laid after tracing the location of the accused with the help of his mobile surveillance.

Brijesh Kumar Singh, Additional Superintendent of Police of STF Meerut, said that an input was received from Military Intelligence that some elements were engaged in recovering huge amounts of money from aspirants of Agniveer recruitment in the Army. He said that the accused demanded Rs 5 lakh from the aspirants on the pretext of recruitment in the Agniveer scheme launched earlier this year by the government for short term recruitment in military services.

He added that three members of the gang were still absconding.

"After getting the inputs of the sinister activity taking place in the Agniveer recruitment process that is currently underway in Muzaffarnagar and Meerut, we started the investigation. The input was further developed and a candidate, Prashant Singh, was identified who was supposed to appear for re-medicals at Military Hospital in Meerut on Tuesday," the ASP (STF) said.

He was lured by Naresh Kumar for confirmed re-medicals in lieu of Rs 5 lakh. The UP STF was then roped in for the task and he was arrested, according to a source.

On the instructions of SP (STF) Kuldeep Narayan, the STF team arrested the accused while a search was going on for his accomplices.

An aspirant was approached by Naresh with the promise to help him clear his re-medicals at Military Hospital Meerut in lieu of Rs 5 lakh. The accused had made a deal with four aspirants and had taken Rs 2.5 lakh from a fifth aspirant, reports said.

Brijesh Kumar Singh said that they put Naresh's mobile on surveillance and managed to arrest him. Naresh Kumar, during the questioning, revealed he had been involved in similar army recruitment scams for the last four years and had duped youths of around Rs 35 lakh," he said.

Police have registered a case under relevant sections of law against the accused and the military authorities have also started investigations into the scam.

"It was also revealed during questioning that Saurabh, brother of the accused used to pick up the candidates and later introduce them to Havildar Naresh who would pose as serving personnel of Military Hospital, Meerut having contacts with the specialist doctors in the Military Hospital and to help them pass the medical exams he used to take Rs 5 lakh along with the original educational documents of the candidates," the sources confirmed.