Four held in Gurgaon for selling fake university degrees, marksheets

Gurgaon police arrested four people, including two women, for providing students with fake marksheets and degrees

The Gurgaon police have arrested four people, including two women, for allegedly providing several students with fake university marksheets and degrees. The police said the four, who had set up this racket in the city three years ago, were arrested after a specific complaint was received from someone against them.

Police said the gang composed of two men and two women who had been running the racket in the city for four years.

Police said they recovered 103 fake degrees and certificates of different universities from their possession. One laptop and six stamps were also recovered, they added.

Those arrested were identified as Naveen (resident of Jhajjar), Mohammad (resident of Nuh, Mewat), Anushka (resident of Rohtak) and Poonam (resident of Allahabad).

According to the police, the group was arrested from their office in Sanjay Gram near Sector 14 from where they operated and had opened an office called Ambition Education.

“Many fake documents and incriminating pieces of evidence were found from their office. This includes over 300 fake certificates,’’ said inspector Raj Kumar, in-charge, crime investigation agency 9, Sector 39.

The police claimed that when they entered the office the women tried to burn the fake degrees and blank marksheets, but were stopped.

The police also said that one of those caught had passed out of one Hapur College but found his degree to be of a fake university as it had no UGC accreditation. “It was probably there that he picked up the trick,’’ said Kumar.

This man used to offer all sorts of degrees and marksheets from Class 12 to MSc, MA, MBA, MEd, MCom, BA, BSc, and hotel management in the names of Akhil Bharatiya Shiksha Sansthan, Manav Bharti University, Himachal Pradesh University, Sunrise University and Karnataka University, police said.

The modus operandi involved giving advertisements in newspapers promising students all sorts of degrees with charges ranging from Rs10,000 to Rs2 lakh. “Local institutes are also being investigated. The group also used to induce aspirants to enrol themselves at Ambition Education,’’ said Kumar.

The police said they used a decoy customer in order to nab the group. “The accused asked our decoy the year and percentage of marks he was seeking to be put in his marksheet. He was asked to pay Rs20,000 and told to bring another Rs 25,000 the next day,’’ said the police official.