Three more held in multi-crore SC, ST scholarship scam

With the arrest of three more accused, including a woman and her daughter, the multi-crore scam in the SC, ST students post metric scholarship scheme seems to be

With the arrest of three more accused, including a woman and her daughter, the multi-crore scam in the SC, ST students post metric scholarship scheme seems to be getting bigger.

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The state vigilance bureau, which has registered four cases since June, 2019, in the scam has so far nabbed five people. Three more people were arrested on Thursday. They were presented before the court on Friday which sent them to three-day police remand.

Superintendent of police Manbir Singh on Saturday said according to the investigation so far, the modus operandi of the accused was to fraudulently claim scholarship amount from the state government on bogus admissions with doctored identities.

“The accused would apply for the scholarships with details of genuine students to the department of welfare of SCs and BCs. However, they would change the same with doctored documents such as bank accounts in the banks which released the money to claim the scholarships. In a large number of cases, the modus operandi was to offer free education plus a variety of courses to beneficiary students but the accused, in lieu of this, kept their ATM cards and other bank documents to withdraw the scholarship amount,” the SP said.

He added, “The amount, thus, embezzled by the accused is around ₹45 crore of which about ₹89 lakh had been embezzled in Panchkula, ₹23 crore in Rohtak and ₹21 crore in Hisar.”

The SP said while accused Rajinder Sangwan, a resident of Panipat, who was the then deputy director in the department of welfare of SCs and BCs, and Surender Kumar, the then clerk in Sonepat, were arrested earlier, three more accused identified as Rahul, a resident of Rohtak, Gurudev Kaur and her daughter Ritik Singh, were arrested from Dera Bassi in Punjab on Thursday.

He said Gurudev Kaur used to run a NGO in Yamunanagar. Her employee Mayank Choudhry had told her that the accused Rahul had told him about the scholarship scheme. Choudhry told her how OPJS university in Churu of Rajasthan, which is also under scanner in the case, got these scholarships.

The SP said the scholarship amount was yet to be recovered from the accused in all the cases.