With the three-day custody of the prime suspect Rasheed, 45, in the NEET impersonation case ending on Monday, the investigators have obtained vital clues, reliable sources in the CB-CID police said here on Tuesday.
The scam, which rocked the medical aspirants in 2019, led to the arrest of as many as 17 persons including students, their parents and brokers.
Based on the confessions, the CB-CID police went in search of Rasheed. A native of Kerala, he was reportedly in Bangalore. On January 7, he appeared before the Judicial Magistrate Court here and surrendered. Following this, the police took him into custody for interrogation.
He is understood to have revealed some information about money transactions to get admissions in private medical colleges in Bangalore. The private colleges gave seats to aspirants based on the NEET score and to get higher marks in the NEET, Rasheed and his accomplices from Bihar and Gujarat had played a role in impersonation at examination centres.
A top officer said that the network of brokers, who had access to the private medical colleges, forced some parents to pay a huge sum apart from capitation fee to get admission. He said that Rasheed had engaged some people to impersonate students in the NEET examination for which he had collected money through his accomplices.
The CB-CID police produced the accused before the JM Panneerselvam, who had directed him to be in judicial custody till January 21, the police said and added that they may investigate more suspects in the case based on inputs from Rasheed.
An anonymous e-mail received by the authorities in Theni Government Medical College in 2019 unravelled the mystery behind the impersonation.
