The district police have unearthed an alleged marks card racket at Karnataka State Open University (KSOU) Mysuru.
The Gandhi Chowk police station, which registered the case on March 3, the investigation of which is still under way, has found that two institutions in Vijayapura and Banahatti of Bagalkot district, were allegedly involved in issuing fake marks cards to students of distance education.
According to a senior police official, Somalinga Kumbar, 32, had filed a case, following which three persons were arrested for their alleged involvement.
The arrested are Basavaraj Gaikwad, a native of Banahatti village of Bagalkot, who runs Sharada Education Centre, Mallu Patil, the owner of cyber café of Mudhol town of Bagalkot district, and Hanumanth Salunke of Vijayapura city who runs Sai Samartha Education Centre. Though the FIR was filed against Hanumanth Salunke only, the police said the other two were arrested during the investigation.
Links with RSS
Gaikwad, who is now out on bail, is an advocate by profession and is said to have had close links with the RSS for years. The police said that since both Gaikwad and Salunke run education centres, they could easily convince people of issuing fake certificates for huge sums of money.
According to the police, Salunke coordinated with Gaikwad, who got the fake documents printed at Patil’s computer centre. “During the interrogation, both the accused admitted that they had already issued around 20 fake marks cards. However, we could not prove this as no records are available,” an official said.
No comment
When The Hindu contacted Mr. Kumbar, he refused to speak about the case saying that it was a closed chapter.
Several attempts to contact Gaikwad were in vain. However, his brother Nandu Gaikwad, who is a tax consultant, spoke on his behalf. He said that his brother was innocent and has been wrongly charged.
Making it clear that during the investigation the University authorities had denied issuing such certificates, the police have continued with the probe. “It is difficult to investigate without more people coming forward to register a case that will help us in widening our search area,” the police said.
