Gang promises daughter of MBBS prof seat, dupes him ₹32 lakh

The scam happened on September 27, when the seven accused came to meet the complainant, Abhijit Appasaheb Vanire, in Alibag. Vanire, a professor in a Kolhapur college, was approached in August by a gang member who posed as an official from a consultancy which helped people get medical college admission

Navi Mumbai: After being cheated of ₹5 lakh taken from him on the promise of a D.Ed admission and a job in 2013, a man from West Bengal decided to use a similar modus operandi for a living. The accused, identified as Somen Sudhanshu Manna (33), took the help of six others and cheated a Kolhapur man of ₹32 lakh by promising admission to his daughter at the government medical college in Alibag.

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The scam happened on September 27, when the seven accused came to meet the complainant, Abhijit Appasaheb Vanire, in Alibag. Vanire, a professor in a Kolhapur college, was approached in August by a gang member who posed as an official from a consultancy which helped people get medical college admission. He told Vanire that he could get admission through the management quota in any college in Chennai, Hyderabad or Bangalore.

Vanire asked for admission to a college in Maharashtra, which the accused told him was not possible. Subsequently, he did a search of government medical colleges in Maharashtra and called up Vanire again in September and offered a seat at Alibag. “The accused were unaware that the government medical college in Alibag is yet to start,” said SP Somnath Gharge from the Raigad police. “All the accused came from West Bengal to Alibag in an SUV and met the complainant at Alibag Civil Hospital. They claimed it was a medical college and took ₹32.50 lakh from him.”

The accused made Vanire and his daughter fill some forms at a hotel and said they would be back after getting the signature of the dean. Vanire, after waiting for a few hours, tried calling their numbers but all were switched off. He then went to the hospital to enquire about the admission and realised that he had been cheated.

After Vanire registered a complaint, the local crime branch (LCB) of Raigad put the phones of all the accused on surveillance. While four of the seven had left in the SUV, three took different routes. With the help of technical clues, the police figured out that the accused were on their way to West Bengal. They then took a flight to West Bengal and reached even before the accused, and nabbed them on Tuesday.

The LCB team reached Mumbai with the accused on Wednesday and produced them in court, which granted custody till October 8. Apart from Manna, the three others arrested are Saurabh Soumya Das (43), Somesh Birendranath (27) and Abhishek Kumar Dilip Razzak (22). While Birendranath was the driver of the vehicle, Razzak used his English-speaking skills to convince the complainant. ₹20 lakh was recovered from them while the remaining amount is with the wanted three accused.

“We are investigating if they cheated anyone else in a similar way,” said Gharge. “They had details of candidates who appeared for NEET, and contacted many parents. We suspect that like Vanire, other parents too might have shown interest. We are also investigating how the gang got details of the candidates.”