14 fake paramedical colleges duped 800 students in 10 years: Police
The racket came to light after the police arrested the group’s director Pankaj Porowal, who hails from Agra district, and produced him before a court here. The court remanded him to police custody for 14 days.
In a scam that began in Agra and spread to 12 districts in Uttar Pradesh in 10 years, Gorakhpur police on Monday said over 800 people were awarded counterfeit diplomas and certificates by paramedical colleges run by an illegitimate education group.
The racket came to light after the police arrested the group’s director Pankaj Porowal, who hails from Agra district, and produced him before a court here. The court remanded him to police custody for 14 days.
In a joint press conference, senior superintendent of police (SSP) Dr Gaurav Grover, ASP Manush Parik and SP North Manoj Awasthi said police were on the lookout for 13 more persons who helped in running the racket in the form of Agra’s Shahganj-based Abdul Kalam Group of Institutes.
In operation since 2013, the group had franchised out to 14 branches in exchange for a sum of ₹2 lakh to ₹3 lakh for each. The SP said the group offered programmes that trained the candidates to become auxiliary nurse midwives, pathology assistants and the like.
Awasthi added the estimated worth of the scam could be around ₹5 crore even as further investigation into the case was underway.
The officials said the group authorised counterfeit degrees to 800 students since 2013. Currently, 200 students were enrolled in the different branches of the group, they added.
The SSP said police got a hint of the scam when the operator of one of the 14 colleges was arrested from Deoria and jailed last year. Another case against a group-run college was registered in Gorakhpur’s Chauri Chaura. The investigations into both cases revealed that Poroval was the mastermind of the scam.
Later, a team of Gorakhpur police reached Agra and arrested Poroval under sections 420 (cheating) and 467 (forgery) of the IPC.
14 fake paramedical colleges
The officials provided the list of places where the fake paramedical colleges set up by Abdul Kalam Group were being run: PDA Colony (Mundera in Prayagraj), Ganguli Poora Bazar (Ayodhya) and Sirsa Ganj (Firozabad), Deoria, Ranidiha in Gorakhpur, Charajpura in Balia, Rudrapur in Ramnagar, Varanasi, Urdauli in Sitapur, and Shahjahanpur. Also, one Saain Hospital in Bareilly was also set up by the group in question.
Abdur Rahman
