A man and his son, both employees of Anna University, were arrested by the city police on Monday on charges of cheating several people to the tune of nearly Rs. 1 crore after promising to get them engineering and medical college seats.
Central Crime Branch (CCB) officers said the arrested duo was Mohammed Nabi (50), a lab technician at the university who has been working there since 1980, and his son Mohammed Imran (25), who has been an office assistant at the university’s electrical maintenance department since 2009.
The two had spread the word that they could help potential students obtain admission to the university and other colleges hassle-free, but for a hefty price.
In April this year, Venkatesh, a medical practitioner from Kancheepuram, along with his friends Chandran from Erode and Prem Anthony from Royapuram, had approached Nabi for MBBS admissions for their wards.
The three students were in class XII at a residential school in Erode then. As they were childhood friends, their parents wanted them to pursue an MBBS degree in the same college.
“Nabi and Imran promised the doctor and his friends that their children would be admitted at one of the city medical colleges for the academic year 2013-14. The doctor gave them Rs. 22 lakh and promised an additional Rs. 18 lakh when his son got a seat,” said T. Srinivasan, inspector of police, CCB, the investigating officer in the case.
Chandran and Anthony handed over Rs. 5 lakh each, and all three waited for the admissions to go through.
Once the academic year began, and the admissions still hadn’t come through, the parents demanded a refund. Nabi and his son began avoiding them and wouldn’t take their calls, the officer said.
The three then lodged a police complaint. A CCB team apprehended Nabi and Imran from their house on Monday morning.
Interrogations revealed that the duo had also cheated several others including two persons from Andhra Pradesh after collecting Rs. 35 lakh and promising to get them engineering seats.
