DU admission racket kingpin lands in police net

New Delhi: Delhi Police have arrested the alleged kingpin of a racket, which used to help students secure admission in leading Delhi University colleges using fake documents.

The racket was busted on July 30 with the arrest of four persons. The police is now looking for the kingpin's main associate, who was involved in a similar scam around four years ago.

A team of Crime Branch officials arrested Inderjeet Singh alias Kaku (35) yesterday from Haridwar, where he was living at his maternal uncle's house.

Singh had fled from Delhi on July 29 after four of his associates were arrested by the police, said a senior police official.

The accused were found to be involved in around 25 fake documents-based admissions in leading DU colleges that include Hindu College, Kirori Mal College, Aurobindo College (evening), Dayal Singh College (morning and evening), Shaheed Bhagat Singh College, Kamla Nehru College and Ram Lal Anand college.

As many as 10 admissions were secured in Shaheed Bhagat Singh college alone, said a senior official.

The police are now looking for Kaku's neighbour-cum-associate Himanshu Gupta (30), who was once arrested in connection with another DU admission scam in 2011.

"Kaku claimed to be the secretary of the youth wing of a national political party and it has also emerged that he was planning to contest in the upcoming 2017 municipal election in Delhi," an official privy to the investigation told PTI.

Kaku told the police that he and Gupta fled together on July 29 and lived at several places-- mostly at friends' and relatives' houses in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

But Gupta separated and went his own way around 12 days ago. Kaku has so far claimed to have no idea about Gupta's whereabouts, said the official.

Kaku is a resident of south Delhi's Malviya Nagar area

and he was in the business of liaisons. He graduated from Aurobindo College (evening) and had been involved in racket for almost the past eight years.

Kaku landed in the police dragnet through technical surveillance, after he called up an associate who was under the police scanner, the official said.

Kaku and his associates charged between Rs 7 lakh and Rs 8 lakh for admission to DU North Campus colleges and around Rs 4 lakh for admission to colleges under DU South Campus, said the official, adding that the Kaku-Himanshu Gupta duo is suspected to be involved in more than 100 fake admissions.

However, Kaku has so far not disclosed the names of any office clerk in any of the leading colleges where he had allegedly secured admissions based on fake documents, said the official.

On July 30, Delhi Police claimed to have busted a racket which helped students get admission in Delhi University colleges using forged documents and papers, with the arrest of four persons - identified as Sunil Panwar aka Guruji, Mohammad Zubeir, Praveen Jha and Ranchit Khurana.

They allegedly provided their clients with fake marksheets, migration certificates, degrees, character certificates and other such papers.

During interrogation, they said the gang's sub-leaders Sunil Panwar and Zubeir, a final year student of Aurobindo College, used to scout for candidates who could not get admissions in DU.

Ranchit was involved in procuring fake documents for such candidates from Praveen Jha, the officer said.

Large number of blank and complete degrees, mark sheets, caste certificates and other documents were seized from Praveen's house in West Vinod Nagar. Computer, printers and stamps of different schools and education boards were also recovered from there, he said.

The gang also created fake websites of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar boards as they mainly prepared documents of UP and Bihar boards as most of their candidates belonged to that area, police said.

Documents of students who are suspected to have secured admission on the basis of forged documents are being obtained from the concerned colleges and will be examined, police said.