Noida: 3 arrested for duping NEET aspirants

Police recovered 10 phones, two fake Aadhaar cards, a datasheet of 3,000 NEET aspirants, a premium laptop, and a Toyota Fortuner from their possession

Three men, including a PhD scholar, have been arrested by Noida unit of the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (UPSTF) for allegedly duping NEET-Undergraduate aspirants by offering them an easy way to pass the exam in exchange for ₹5 lakh, police said on Monday.

The accused used to tell candidates to appear for the exam and answer only those questions they could solve in the Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheet and leave the rest blank, promising to fill in the correct answers later by secretly accessing the OMR sheet. (HT Photos)

The suspects were identified as Vikram Kumar Shah, the PhD scholar, and Aniket Kumar, both residents of Laxmi Nagar, Delhi, and Dharmpal Singh, a resident of Sagarpur, Delhi, all in their 30s, police said.

“On May 3, we received a tip-off that a few people, operating an office in Sector 3, Noida, were demanding money from parents for an easy way for their children to clear the NEET exam, scheduled for May 4. We gathered more evidence and raided the office,” said additional superintendent of police (Noida STF) Raj Kumar Mishra.

“It was found that the suspects had allegedly created a fake website and were charging ₹5 lakh for their services to help students pass exams like NEET,” he added.

Investigators said that during interrogation the suspects revealed that in 2011, when Shah went to study biotechnology at a university in Chennai from his hometown Darbhanga in Bihar, he met Kumar, a biotechnology graduate. They started offering admissions at the same college for a 30% commission.

“After completing their post-graduation from the university in Chennai, they came to Delhi in 2016 and met Singh, a graduate from a university in Shahjahanpur, UP. Together, they created a fake website called ‘Admission View’. Initially, they targeted MBBS candidates, charging ₹5 lakh. But as complaints against their website rose, they launched another website and shifted operations to Noida,” said Addl SP Mishra.

Modus Operandi

After accessing candidates’ data online, the accused would contact them and take an ₹80,000 advance from them.

The accused told candidates to appear for the exam and answer only those questions they could solve in the Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheet and leave the rest blank, promising to fill in the correct answers later by secretly accessing the OMR sheet. If the candidate passed the exam, the accused would claim credit and take the rest of the money from them. If the candidate failed, the accused would end all contact with them and change their office address, police said.

Police recovered 10 phones, two fake Aadhaar cards, a datasheet of 3,000 NEET aspirants, a premium laptop, and a Toyota Fortuner. Police are probing how many were duped by the accused. A case has been registered under Sections 318 (cheating), 319 (cheating by personation), 336 (forgery), 337 (forgery of record), 338 (forgery of valuable security), 349 (forged electronic documents), and 61 (criminal conspiracy) of BNS.