At least 2,000 doctors, engineers and researchers are suspected to be working as professionals or pursuing courses with the help of fake degrees allegedly issued from a small office in west Delhi’s Janakpuri, the police said on Thursday.
Materials seized
Nearly 200 printed fake degrees, along with computers that had many more soft copies, have been been seized from the accused, identified as Rupesh Kumar, Rithesh Kumar, Someer Kumar and Mukesh Thakur. The police have arrested four men who posed as consultants with “clients” in Bihar, Haryana, Punjab and Delhi. “From CBSE certificates for Classes X and XII to those pursuing PhD or medicine, they would offer many degrees, charging between ₹ 5,000 to even ₹ 5 lakh,” said DCP (West) Vijay Kumar.
Although no fake degree holders have been tracked yet, the police suspect many of them would be practising medicine illegally in tiny villages, where the chances of getting caught are not high. The lid was blown off the scam when Shahbazul Haque (28) from Tilak Nagar contacted main accused Rupesh Kumar for admission to Class X. “He was initially told that he would be provided the certificate after undergoing brief training and then appearing for the board exam via distance education. However, he was given the certificate and told that he did not need to write any exam,” said Mr. Kumar.
Rupesh sent him the certificate on WhatsApp, “issued by the Intermediate Schooling Council of Education [ICSE]”.
Mr. Haque was shocked to see that the date of issuance was 2003. “I did not even live in India in 2003,” said Mr. Haque, who went on to contact the police.
