Two people were nabbed last week for allegedly procuring a duplicate MBBS degree in Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior, police on Tuesday said, adding that the arrests helped unearth a fake-certificate racket in the city.
Pratiksha Dahima and her boyfriend, Mohammad Shafiq, were arrested for allegedly procuring a fake medical degree and marksheet of one Dr Pratiksha Sharma, who completed her MBBS from Gajra Raja Medical College affiliated to Jiwaji University in Gwalior.
The duplicate certificate was procured for Dahima, a resident of Maharashtra’s Malegaon who practices there, police said. Dahima and Shafiq, also from Malegaon, are reportedly a part of a gang that sells fake degrees to doctors in Maharashtra, they added.
A senior Gwalior Crime Branch police officer said the alleged racket came to light after a peon at the varsity issued a duplicate copy of the certificate to Pratiksha Dahima, mistaking her to be Dr Pratiksha Sharma, who is the niece of a BJP leader in Gwalior.
“Pratiksha Sharma’s mother works at Jiwaji University and her uncle is a BJP leader in Gwalior. A peon wanted to impress the BJP leader and told him that he had issued a duplicate degree to his niece within 24 hours on her request. Since Pratiksha Sharma was in Delhi for her postgraduate studies, the BJP leader approached the police,” Rishikesh Meena, additional superintendent of police, Gwalior crime branch, said.
{{/usCountry}}“Pratiksha Sharma’s mother works at Jiwaji University and her uncle is a BJP leader in Gwalior. A peon wanted to impress the BJP leader and told him that he had issued a duplicate degree to his niece within 24 hours on her request. Since Pratiksha Sharma was in Delhi for her postgraduate studies, the BJP leader approached the police,” Rishikesh Meena, additional superintendent of police, Gwalior crime branch, said.
{{/usCountry}}“A probe was launched and subsequently, Dahima and Shafiq were arrested,” Meena added.
Meena said that preliminary probe indicated that 13 people procured duplicate degrees from the varsity in the past five years. “We have sought the names of 13 people who were given duplicate degrees. Once we get the list, we will verify whether the original degree holders had applied for it,” Meena said.
Police said a probe is underway and efforts are on to ascertain the mastermind of the racket.
The university said it has formed a committee to probe the matter. Jiwaji University public relations officer Vimlendra Rathore said: “At least 10 people have been removed from the degree section after the matter came to light. A high-level committee is probing the matter.”