Dud caste certificates in DU admission scam

NEW DELHI: A snowballing scam in fake caste certificates rocked Delhi University on Saturday leaving prominent colleges scrambling for scrutiny with admissions in full swing.
Scheduled Caste (SC) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) certificates were apparently available easily for Rs 3 -5 lakh and even some 90 percenters seemed to have succumbed to temptation to get courses of their choice in colleges of their liking.Thirteen dud admissions have been confirmed and at least eight more are under the scanner. These students face a bleak future and their parents too will face police action. Three men who were operating the racket have been arrested.
The brazen manner in which the students secured admissions has left a big question mark hanging over DU’s verification process. Even students with common Brahmin surnames managed to get into prominent colleges. An employee of the Hauz Khas tehsildar’s office allegedly uploaded the certificates on the website and no one bothered to check any further. All addresses on the fake certificates were from Hauz Khas and even a cursory look at the other certificates of the student would have exposed the scam much earlier.
The gang has been apparently operating through an educational consultancy firm – Sai Educational Consultancy – with branches in Pune and Kolkata and has been allegedly getting students admitted in a similar fashion since 2008.
These cases have been detected in SRCC, Kirori Mal, Sri Venkateswara, Kamla Nehru and Saheed Bhagat Singh (four cases), Moti Lal Nehru, College of Vocational Studies and Delhi College of Arts and Commerce.
The mastermind, the police have claimed, is Himanshu Gupta (26) – a third officer with the merchant navy – who studied in a prominent public school in the Hauz Khas area.
At least a couple of students who took Gupta’s ``help’’ have passed out from the same school. He allegedly managed to get 12 students, including four girls, admitted to eight colleges this year. Himanshu and his associates, Vikas Khanna (24) and Ketan Gupta (24), were arrested on Thursday.
According to the inter-state cell of crime branch, led by ACP Rajender Bakshi, several other admissions in the OBC and SC quota in the past 10 days are being scrutinised. ``We are questioning a number of people, including parents of the students who were all admitted after the first list came out. A couple of teachers from prominent schools and tutorial houses of south Delhi are being investigated,’’ said DCP (crime) Ashok Chand.
While students with 71-78 per cent scores have taken this route, the case of a student who secured 94.25 per cent stands out. She was sure of getting her dream seat in B.Com (Hons) at SRCC but the first list dashed her hopes. She needed a minimum of 96 per cent. So, she produced a fake OBC certificate and got admission.
A crucial role in this case and the other ones was played by Ketan, who is a data entry operator on contract at the Hauz Khas tehsildar’s office.