PURNIA, June 11 -- Police in Bihar's Purnia district have launched a manhunt to arrest a 30-year-old man allegedly involved in running a fake recruitment drive for home guards for over a year. Surprisingly, the recruitment drive was being operated from a government school in Betauna, Kasba. Speaking to media persons on Tuesday, Superintendent of Police (SP) Kartikeya K Sharma denied reports that a fake police station had been operating for over a year. "It wasn't a police station; it was a fake recruitment drive carried out clandestinely by a local resident, Rahul Kumar Sah of Kasba," the SP said. He added, "When the so-called recruits started asking for their salaries, as assured by the mastermind after six months, he fled from the scene." The SP confirmed that a police team is searching for the accused and an investigation is underway. According to police, the accused posed as a police officer-cum-recruiter and charged each candidate between Rs.5,000 and Rs.10,000 for recruitment as a home guard. He allegedly collected this amount from over 200 people. He even provided them with uniforms and batons, and more surprisingly, assigned them duties at various locations. "It is indeed surprising how these fake home guards continued to perform their duties under the very nose of the police administration," said locals, adding that they also extorted money from vehicles. "They even conducted raids against liquor mafias and later extorted huge sums from them with a promise to hush up the matter," they claimed. Locals said the mastermind came from a very poor family, with his father earning a living selling vegetables. "We could never have imagined such a big fraud by this man," they said. Meanwhile, the education department is also under scrutiny for failing to report the matter to the authorities. "We demand a thorough probe against the education department. Despite their tall claims, they remained unaware of the matter," locals alleged....