Medical college admission racket busted by Navi Mumbai police; 5 arrested

Navi Mumbai police claimed to have busted a big racket that was cheating students to the tune of Rs 3.30 crore under the pretext of facilitating admission in medical colleges and have arrested five persons in this connection.

The accused had cheated students from Navi Mumbai town in Thane district, neighbouring Mumbai, Gujarat and other places, Navi Mumbai Police Commissioner Milind Bharambe told reporters on Wednesday, January 18, as per a PTI report.

The gang members, operating for the last five to seven years, would contact students scoring low marks in the pre-medical National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) and offer them admission in medical colleges by charging a hefty amount, he said.

How the racket unfolded

The accused persons claimed to have influence in the management of seven prominent medical colleges in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai and also produced fabricated admission letters before the victims to gain their confidence and get money in cash or through the digital mode, the official said. They used to get the details of students from the websites where they had applied for admissions, he said.

The accused would take the students to the medical colleges and the office of the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) to show their influence and get them fake admission letters, the official added, as per the PTI report.

Bharambe said the police received the first complaint when the accused allegedly cheated a student from Chhattisgarh and took Rs 33.5 lakh from her by promising to get her admission in a medical college in Nerul area of Navi Mumbai. The accused also gave her a fake admission letter, he said.

The Nerul police registered an offence in this connection. They worked on various intelligence and technical inputs and nabbed the five accused, identified as Saurabh Krishna Upadyaya (39), Iftekar Ahmed Mustaq Ahmed alias Abhay Singh alias Gautam (31) (both from Noida), Lav Avadkishore Gupta (35), hailing from Mumbai, Akib Naushad Ahmed (28) and Abhijyat Radhesyam Singh (41), both from Ghaziabad, he said.

With the arrest of the five accused, the police claimed to have detected cheating cases registered in Navi Mumbai, Mumbai and Bhandara district in Maharashtra. Offences had earlier also been registered against the accused at different places in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Navi Mumbai, Gujarat, Palghar and Mumbai, the police said. Bharambe appealed to medical aspirants not to fall prey to such frauds and contact the Navi Mumbai police if they have been cheated.