Police on Saturday claimed to have smashed a racket involved in helping students get admission in Delhi University colleges using fake caste certificates for Rs three to five lakh with the arrest of three youths, including a contract employee in a tehsildar office in New Delhi.
The racket led by Himanshu Gupta allegedly managed to get admissions for 12 students, including four girls, during this admission season in eight colleges. The colleges included Sri Ram College of Commerce, Kirori Mal College, Kamla Nehru College and Moti Lal Nehru College.
Himanshu (26) and his associates Vikas (24) and Ketan Gupta (24) were arrested on Thursday following investigations into inputs about a racket operating in Delhi in which students were getting admitted in various colleges on the basis of forged caste certificates.
Ketan is a data entry operator on contract basis and it was he who allegedly helped the gang in making fake certificates and upload it on government website.
Himanshu was the first to be arrested from near Hans Raj College in North Campus when he came there with a girl aspirant who had scored 91 per cent in Class XII for getting herself admitted in B.Com course in the institution.
Forged caste certificate of the girl student, admission form and a bank draft were recovered from him.
“The caste of the girl in the forged caste certificate was mentioned as ‘Gujjar’ and her residence was shown as Lado Sarai whereas she does not belong to ‘Gujjar’ community nor does she live in Lado Sarai,” Ashok Chand, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime), said.
Himanshu’s interrogation led to the arrest of his two associates Vikas and Ketan from Pushp Vihar and Mehrauli respectively.
On the modus operandi, Mr. Chand said, Himanshu and Vikas floated an educational consultancy firm and advertised in the leading news papers in Delhi and other cities about facilitating admissions.
They charged Rs 3 to 5 lakh for each student for ensuring admission in the college of their choice.
“They gave assurances to students and their parents that they will ensure full-proof admission. They got prepared forged caste certificates and submitted the same along with the other documents to the colleges for admission,” Mr. Chand said.
In this academic session, 10 forged caste certificates shown as issued from the office of Tehsildar in Mehrauli, were allegedly prepared by Ketan.
“Data of the forged certificates was uploaded by Ketan on the official website so that if anybody checked its authenticity, the same could be verified from the official website. Three forged caste certificates shown as issued from the office of Tehsildar in Ghaziabad were got prepared by one of their associates Satish who is absconding,” mr. Chand said.
Mr. Chand said the gang was operating since 2008. In the previous years, they have secured admission of students in Delhi University on the basis of forged caste certificates shown to have been issued from Ghaziabad.
However, according to them, number of such admissions were few. “This year they got Ketan in their network. Hence, they could get more students admitted in the colleges of Delhi University on the basis of forged caste certificates,” Mr. Chand said.
Two cars, which bear stickers of a leading electronic media channel, 12 admission forms along with forged caste certificates and Rs five lakh in cash were recovered from them.
Himanshu Gupta did a course in Merchant Navy from Mumbai and he worked as a Third Officer in a ship while Vikas did B.Com. Vikas has recently cleared the entrance test for LLB from Faculty of Law.
Ketan did his B.Com through correspondence from Delhi University in 2008. He is getting Rs 8,000 as monthly salary as a data operator.
