Gujarat: 45 booked, three arrested in IELTS scam

AHMEDABAD: The Mehsana police, endorsing an investigation by TOI into human smuggling cases from Gujarat, on Sunday booked 45 persons for their alleged involvement in the IELTS scam, where those aspiring to fulfil their US dreams fraudulently received high scores. Those booked include the five men who were saved from drowning in the St Regis during their illegal bid to enter the US from Canada in April.The Special Operations Group of the Mehsana police also arrested three men from Ahmedabad. They were identified as International English Language Testing System (IELTS) exam invigilator Sunny Patel from Nutan Society in Odhav, as well as writers Gopal Menon, a resident of Sanskruti society in Bopal, and Sawant Fernandes, a resident of Gala Heaven near Vaishnodevi Circle. The police also named Sanjiv Sehgal, a chief executive of Planet Education, the agency that conducted the IELTS exam, as accused in the case.An FIR filed with Mehsana B division police by SOG PI Bhavesh Rathod states that they began investigating the case in May after the TOI report titled 'Band 8 in IELTS, but they still needed translator in US court' was sent to them by an officer of the US consulate general in Mumbai. TOI had detailed how six persons from Gujarat, who had obtained high IELTS scores, struggled to understand English at a US court and had to be provided with a translator to communicate with the officials.Citing the report, the FIR mentioned that none of the six men who tried to enter the US through the Canada border on April 28 had appeared for the IELTS exam. The six were identified as Amit Patel, 22, Dhruv Patel, 22, Neel Patel, 19, Urvesh Patel, 20, Saavan Patel, 19, and Darshan Patel, 21. Barring Amit Patel, cops found forged certificates on five youths.Further inquiry revealed that a man from Visnagar in Mehsana named Jitendra Patel, in connivance with human smuggler Bharat alias Bobby Patel, had helped five out of the six men acquire Canadian student visas in December 2021. “All of them had obtained admissions to different universities in Canada by March 2022,” said police. “Before this, the main accused, Amit Chaudhary from Sargasan in Gandhinagar, with the help of human smugglers, had arranged a fake exam in a hotel in Navsari between September 24 and September 26. In that hotel, the question papers for the US aspirants were written by the writers hired by Amit Chaudhary. Others were also hired to appear in place of the original candidates for the speaking test,” the police added. The FIR said that apart from these five, 17 others had taken the illegal exam and obtained certificates. Cops said that many aspirants had been cheated as the accused conducted fraudulent IELTS exams. Police teams are still hunting for the accused in the state and different parts of the country. Gujarat police began cracking down on human smugglers following the Dingucha tragedy in which four members of a family from the village in Gandhinagar froze to their deaths 10 metres from the US-Canada border on January 19. The incident highlighted the risky methods used by agents involved in illegal immigration.