New Delhi, Apr 15 (IANS): The Delhi Police have arrested three persons on Saturday night for allegedly cheating over 150 youths in different states on the false promise of getting them recruited in the army, a police office said on Monday.

The accused have been identified as Balkishan, 34, Kallepalli Srinivasa Rao, 25, and Kottapalli Venkata Ramana Rao, 36. "Eleven fake admit cards and three mobile phones were recovered from them," said Additional Commissioner of Police Rajiv Ranjan.

The accused cheated unemployed youths in Haryana, Delhi, Odisha and Tamil Nadu by promising them to get recruited in the army. To win their confidence, they would conduct fake medical tests in hotels, posing as senior army officers.

The accused, claimed to be inspired by the movie 'Special 26', would charge between Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1.50 lakh from each aspirant, depending on negotiations.

While Balkishan, the mastermind, would provide fake stamps of army officials and medical officials, the other two were tasked to prepare admit cards after conducting physical endurance test. "Balkishan also used to send youths in different states for medical and physical tests," the police official said.

As per the interrogation, Balkishan, a resident of Haryana, had a coaching centre for class 10th and 12th students. "He met B.K. Singh, another accused in the case, around six months back, who told Balkishan that he had links with army personnel, tasked with recruiting candidates to the territorial army," he said.

Later, Singh introduced Balkishan to Srinivasa Rao in Bhubaneswar and prepared them to dupe youths looking for career in the army to earn good money. They later roped in Ramana Rao in the syndicate.