Mumbai:
If application records at the Worli police recruitment camp are to be believed, Bollywood icon Salman Khan has now decided to join the police force -- no, not as his screen persona of Chulbul Pandey, but Khan incarnate wants to be a constable. In a major goof up, an online application form submitted by candidate Manohar Dilip Sansare erroneously showed the photograph of Khan, on the eve of his physical exam.
Sansare, a resident of Ulhasnagar, was getting his attested documents ready on November 10, when he got the most incredible bit of information. A friend, who had also applied, called to inform him that his online application form showed a young Salman's mugshot, instead of his own photograph. Sansare was scheduled to submit a hard copy of the form at the Worli recruitment camp the following day, when they reported there for a physical exam.
"Initially I thought it was just a prank, and laughed the matter off. An hour later, another friend called me, with the same bizarre news. Alarmed, I decided to check my application online, and rushed to a cyber cafe. At first I thought the entire thing was funny. But since we had a physical test and document attestation scheduled for November 11, the next day, I got worried," said Sansare, recalling the incident.
"I hurried to the commissioner's office in Ulhasnagar, and informed the officials there about the strange error in my application form. An official spoke to the recruitment officer in Worli, who assured me that I would be allowed to appear for the physical exam the next day," added Sansare.
'Are you Salman?'The next day, Sansare reported to the recruitment camp in Worli on time. After waiting in a queue for nearly one-and-a-half hours, he stepped up to submit his papers. One of the constables noticed the actor's photograph pasted where the candidate's passport photo was to have been affixed, and stopped Sansare.
"I tried hard to convince him that the senior officials from Ulhasnagar had spoken to his superiors and informed them about the glitch, but he turned a deaf ear to my assertions. He kept shooing me away, saying angrily, 'Tu kai Salman Khan aahe ka? (Are you Salman Khan?)'," said Sansare.
When he persisted, Sansare was taken to the senior officials at the recruitment camp, who in turn asked him to wait till they got clearance from the IT section. In course of his inordinate wait at the camp, Sansare called up the officials at the Ulhasnagar police headquarters, who agreed to speak to the officials at the Worli camp once again, and vouch for the fact that the photograph glitch was not Sansare's doing.
"After waiting for four long hours, I was finally allowed to appear for my physical tests. The officials asked me to get a fresh rectified printout of my application form, and I appeared for the test," he concluded.
The other sideSpecial Inspector General of Police (Training) Amitabh Gupta, who is in charge of the police recruitments, said, "This should not have happened in the first place. I will have to check the papers and only then I will be able to speak on the matter."