Many educational institutions offering short and long-term coaching and the exclusive Eamcet coaching centres in Krishna and Guntur districts are under the scanner of the police.
The Crime Investigation Department (CID) police of Telangana, who were probing the leak of the Eamcet Paper-II (for Medicine), had picked up in the last few days a few middlemen, heads of some coaching centres and the persons who contacted them before and after the test.
The arrests were based on the call data recordings retrieved from the mobile phones of the suspects. The police are trying to gather scientific evidence such as bank transactions of the middleman and the students’ parents and agreements if any.
More than 100 coaching centres are located in Arundalpet, Brodipet and Chandramouli Nagar in the Guntur district, and Benz Circle, Governorpet, Patamata, Poranki, Gandhinagar, Gunadala and other places in the Krishna district. Students from Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu take coaching in the centres.
Wide network
Some coaching centres are being run by corporate educational institutions, while a few are being operated by private colleges. Managements of these coaching centres have wide network and are paying crores of rupees to middlemen for admissions, collecting original certificates, publicity and attracting aspirants from other centres.
“Of the 56,000 plus students who appeared for Telangana Eamcet-II, about 40 per cent were from Andhra Pradesh. Many students from A.P. secured good ranks. The T-CID officers picked up suspects from Prakasam, Krishna and Kurnool districts raising doubts on some top rankers,” said a lecturer in a private college.
A few coaching centres and college managements are offering ‘seat guarantee’ for the students. How can they do so in a competitive examination?
The touts contact the students who are economically sound and could not secure good rank even after several attempts, the lecturer opined and suspected the role of some managements in the scam.
“Vijayawada and Guntur, once hubs for education, were known for paper leaks. Earlier, there were incidents of intermediate paper leak and recently the PG Medical Entrance Test (PGMET), in which 25 students and some middlemen were arrested. How did the government and the Intelligence Department fail to track the movements of the suspects before the examinations,” asked a student.
Investigation officers are also focussing on those who secured good ranks.
“The Telangana CID police visited many places in AP and picked up the suspects. More police raids are expected in the next few days and the students and their parents who met brokers for ranks will be arrested. The CID police are so far operating individually. If they ask for any help, we will certainly assist our counterparts,” said an AP police officer.
