E-Paper
Two men held for duping aspirants of money on the promise of medical seats
Officers said the gang allegedly tricked several students who failed to crack NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test). The suspects allegedly took ₹25-35 lakh from each aspirant after promising them a seat, police said
The Gautam Budh Nagar police have arrested two persons for duping medical school aspirants of money by promising them admissions to government and private medical colleges across the country, police said Friday.
Officers said the gang allegedly tricked several students who failed to crack NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test). The suspects allegedly took ₹25-35 lakh from each aspirant after promising them a seat, police said.
The police identified the suspects as Deepak Kumar, who hails from Muzaffarpur in Bihar and resides in Mu2, Greater Noida, and Rajesh Kumar, who hails from Banda in Uttar Pradesh and resides in Sector 63, Noida.
“The matter came to fore on January 3 when a 26-year-old Lucknow-based medical school aspirant was allegedly duped of almost ₹14 lakh on the promise of a seat at a renowned medical college in Bengaluru in Karnataka or Varanasi. On the basis of her complaint, an FIR was registered at the Sector 126 police station against the suspect who posed as an official of a consultancy firm based in Sector 125, Noida,” said Harish Chander, deputy commissioner of police, Noida.
Acting on the complaint, a police team under assistant commissioner of police-1, Noida, was deployed to nab the suspects, said the DCP.
“On the basis of investigations, the suspects were traced via electronic and manual surveillance and nabbed from Hajipur underpass in Sector 100, Noida, on Friday. Upon interrogation, they revealed that they targeted aspiring doctors who scored low in the NEET on the pretext of helping them gaining admission to an MBBS course at a reputed government/private college,” said the officer.
For home state colleges, students were asked to pay ₹35 lakh and ₹25 lakh for out of state colleges, Chander said.
“In order to gain trust, the miscreants would book travel tickets of the victim to go to the college for which they were seeking admission. Upon reaching there, the fake consultant would meet the student and make them meet a man posing as an official of the college. This would make the aspirants believe that they would get the seat,” said the officer.
After taking money, students were given fake admission letters and full payments collected. The gang would then vanish, after shutting their office and switching off phones.
“The gang used one SIM card to connect with one victim and once the work was done, the card was destroyed. Moreover, the gang would not stay at their rented office for more than two or three months. They had been working in Noida since October 2022 and had fled from there in November. Previously, they had run offices in Delhi’s Malviya NagarKanpur and Lucknow,” said Chander.
The police said they have so far been able to trace six to seven aspirants who have been duped by the gang. “We believe the number of victims could be much more. Furthermore, around ₹2.80 lakh in the bank accounts of the accused have been frozen. We have also seized eight Aadhaar cards, nine activated SIM cards, among other items, from the suspects,” the DCP said.
“A third suspect, identified as Yash Choubey, who also goes by the names of “Jai Mehta, Yashwant Chaubey, Yash Chaturvedi”, is currently on the run and his photo has been circulated through media to alert the public,” Chander said.
The suspects have been booked under sections 420 (cheating), 406 (criminal breach of trust) and other relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code. “The suspects were produced before the court and sent to judicial custody,” he said.
