Notwithstanding the consistent crackdown on fake educational certificate rackets by the Hyderabad police, such frauds are thriving in the State capital.
In the past couple of months, the city police arrested several persons on the charge of making and selling fabricated certificates and seized “incriminating material” from them. Earlier also, similar arrests and seizures were made. Interestingly, the police are succeeding in catching these fraudsters but not in preventing them.
A small, secret place, computer and printer are enough for the gangs to make certificates of any type -- be it a marks memo of Secondary School Certificate or doctoral degree from the Banaras Hindu University. Small investment apart, availability of software to reproduce certificate of any format is the other factor fuelling fake certificate rackets. A peculiarity is that a majority of these gangs are busted by the Commissioner's Task Force officials and handed over to the police stations concerned. Like in other crimes, conviction rate is equally low in these cases as well. Data suggests that the old city, coming under South, East and West zones, is the hub for such gangs. Arrest of accused and seizure of material had not deterred others resorting to the fraud. After coming out from prison on bail, some of them are back into the fraud.
Help for fraudsters
Low conviction rate is indirectly helping the fraudsters. If the accused is convicted once or twice, the police can invoke Section 75 of the Indian Penal Code requesting the court to deny bail to them in the backdrop of their criminal record. Emboldened in the absence of conviction, the racketeers are not fearing arrest for the second time and continuing their ‘operations' soon after release. Local police stations are unable to explain why they are failing to catch the gangs while only their counterparts in the Task Force are succeeding. “We're told to keep surveillance on such persons but regular law and order incidents, crime detection work eat away most of our time,” the police say. Investigators concede that their efforts are confined to detection of gangs but completely rooting out these frauds requires a comprehensive strategy making all institutions issuing certificates stake-holders in it. There is no method by which a person can verify the genuineness of a certificate issued by an organisation from the State let alone other parts of the country.
The format of many certificates can be easily reproduced because they have no secret codes or features. Even a database of certificates issued is not available to cross-check the details. Some companies are hiring the services of detective agencies to confirm the credentials but the high costs involved are acting as a deterrent for others.
