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In the recently conducted recruitment drive, post-26/11 Mumbai attack, a whopping 30,000 aspirants turned up in Ahmedabad, but barely 2,000 cleared the screening. “This was roughly three times more than the usual representation in recruitment rallies until 2008,” said Colonel S P Sharma, director (Recruitment).
But while scrutinising the documents, the Army found that 30 per cent of them had lied about their domicile status in their certificates. Most of the candidates originally belonged to Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan.
The apprehensions of the Army recruitment authorities were strengthened last year, when two sets of Bengali youths made an attempt to join the Army from the state. This had happened during the Godhra and Bharuch Army recruitment rallies respectively held in January and August last year.
“These youths claimed to be Bengalis settled in Gujarat for a decade, but disappeared when we started scrutinising their domicile certificates. The respective district police were intimated, but in vain,” said a senior officer involved in the Army recruitment rallies in Gujarat.
Citing another incident, the officer said that during screening, a youth from Rajasthan, who had passed his SSC and HSC exams in 2005 and 2007 respectively, had a domicile certificate issued from the Anand district collector's officer affirming that he had lived in Gujarat for the last 10 years. The Army authorities are now double checking
it with the Anand district authorities.
Alarmed at this tendency, the Army has now taken up the matter with Chief Minister Narendra Modi as well as the state home secretary, and sought an intervention over the issue of domicile certificates.
“On an average, over 30 per cent of youths recruited from Gujarat are non-Gujaratis, but we found that they had domicile certificates issued by the concerned authorities in the state,” said Col. Sharma. He added this is being viewed seriously, as there is a possibility of a foreign national or an anti-national trying to make his way into the Army by taking advantage of this laxity.
After taking over office in Gujarat in June 2007, Col. Sharma has until now shot several
Authorities plan two-tier check
The Army authorities are now suggesting a set of two formats of domicile certificates for Gujarat in order to weed out the menace of fake domicile certificates. In Gujarat, domicile certificates are issued by the mamlatdar at the taluka (block level), which in reality can be easily sought after bribing the lower level officials. To prevent this, the Army recruitment authorities intend to introduce a new format for the state. Under this, instead of simply seeking domicile certificate, the aspirants will have to specify their birth place with state details, for how long they have been staying in Gujarat and at what addresses. The Army recruitment authorities are also mulling over getting police verification in case of Army aspirants to double check their domicile status.
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