The Balangir Police in Odisha arrested 19 persons over fake certificates used by candidates while applying for Grameen Dak Sevak (GDS) jobs.
According to Balangir Superintendent of Police Nitin Dagudu Kusalkar, one of the accused, Manoj Mishra, who ran an educational institute at Patnagargh Road in Balangir, and his associate Alok Ranjan Udgata had been making fake and forged academic certificates of different boards and universities since 2016.
“Certificates of secondary and higher secondary education examination boards of different States used to be manufactured in Balangir and sold at prices ranging from ₹50,000 to ₹5,00,000,” Mr. Kusalkar said.
The scam surfaced when many candidates of GDS were found to have scored 100% and 99% in their matriculation examinations. The police added that many students had received fake and forged certificates from Mr. Mishra for getting admissions in colleges and employment in government and private jobs.
The investigation found that the scam was not confined to Balangir, and that the fake certificates were supplied to bordering districts such as Bargarh, Kalahandi, Boudh, Subarnapur and Dhenkanal, besides other parts of the country.
“Mishra was running his network very cleverly. He had his contacts in different institutes. Whenever any employer tried to get the marksheets [certificates] verified, his contacts in those institutes had come to his rescue,” said the SP.
In Odisha, five candidates of the GDS had claimed to have secured a perfect 100% and four others above 99%, in their matriculation examination. Similarly, 31 candidates in Jharkhand had said they scored 100%. In Bihar, the number of candidates who had claimed to have secured 100% in Class X examination was more than 100. Invariably, every State had some shortlisted candidates who had scored 100% in their examination.
The Balangir Police suspect that many people who had used these fake certificates were already in different jobs.
