Continuing its crackdown against police recruitment during the Samajwadi Party rule, the Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday dismissed 3,964 policemen and suspended six senior IPS officers on charges of irregularities in their selection.

Principal Secretary (Home) J S Chamber told reporters in Lucknow on Tuesday evening that directives have been given for initiating departmental proceedings against 40 other police officials involved in their recruitment.

The six IPS officers suspended are DIG, Police Training School, Meerut, Ramendra Vikram Singh, who headed the recruitment board in Moradabad and DIG, PAC, Kanpur, Ashok Kumar, who was chairman of the Board in Sitapur, Baharaich District Police Chief B R Meena, SP, Sitapur Mukesh Shukla, SP (EOW) Kanpur, V S Meena and Neelabja Chawdhary, SP, Intelligence, Chamber said.

The sacked policemen included personnel from Provincial Armed Constabulary.

They, however, would be allowed to appear in the fresh recruitment drive as and when it is held and would also be given relaxation in age in case they exceeded the maximum age limit, Chamber said.

He said the action was taken after a probe committee unearthed serious irregularities in the recruitment ranging from faulty evaluation of the answer scripts, awarding full marks in the interviews, cutting and overwriting to candidates making identification marks on the answer scripts.

Identified candidates were recruited by increasing their marks in the evaluation and in many cases it was found that some other people had written the answers, he said.