The net closed on him earlier this week when his accomplice, CID constable Santosh Yadav, was picked up by officers near the same court on Wednesday.

Officers observed while Bose directly approached the court, Yadav’s arrest from nearby only indicated that both wanted to avoid being remanded in police custody.

“The Court has remanded Bose in judicial custody for four days. With his arrest, the total number of arrests in the case has gone up to 19. We hope to learn more about the racket from him,” said Deputy Commissoner (DD) Jawed Shamim.

The Kolkata Police’s detective department has been trying to unravel the spread of the racket, which had already extended its tentacles beyond the city to across the state.

While investigations are still on, interrogation of one of the masterminds, ex-constable Gopal Das has helped the police to estimate the number of “illegal” entrants undergoing training at the Police Training School (PTS).

Constables with the Kolkata Police, Das and Bappa were dismissed in 2006. Since then, they were operating a racket that used dummy candidates to appear on behalf of the actual candidates for the physical test of the recruitment examination.