CHENNAI: As the
NEET impersonation scam turns bigger with the arrest of one more first-year
MBBS
student and detention of two more
students
who are yet to be formally arrested, the
CB-CID police
have approached the National Testing Agency for details of all Tamil Nadu Class XII students who opted for NEET centres outside the state. So far, two students — K V Udit Surya and Praveen — and their fathers Dr K S Venkatesan and A K S Sarvanan, and George Joseph of Trivandrum, an agent, have been arrested in the case. While Udit Suryia’s impersonator wrote NEET examination in Mumbai, Praveen’s impersonator wrote it in Lucknow.
Cops to verify list or NEET candidates with college IDsAnother suspect, Rahul, had made his impersonator write the exam at a centre in New Delhi. The arrested are facing charges punishable under Section 120(b) (conspiracy), 419 (punishment for cheating) and 420 (cheating) of IPC.
A CB-CID officer, noting that they had written to National Testing Agency (NTA), said, “Once we get the list, officials will sit and compare NEET hall tickets and college ID particulars.” He added: “If needed, we will also collect sets of their fingerprints to compare with their NEET applications.”
Police are also contacting all coaching institutes and collecting marks of all their students and their marks in the last six mock tests. Those students who had been consistently scoring low scores in mock tests, but scored high marks in NEET are being scrutinised, he said.
For instance, one of the arrested student had been scoring 11 to 40 marks in mock tests, but showed more than 365 marks in NEET.
After Udit Surya and his father Venkatesan were remanded in prison, police brought three more students and their fathers to the CB-CID’s office Theni on Saturday for detailed interrogation. After questioning, they arrested Praveen and his father Saravanan, and got them remanded in judicial custody.
In a statement, a CB-CID officer said they were questioning MBBS students Rahul and Abirami, besides their fathers Davis and Madhavan.
An investigation officer said Udit Surya, Rahul and Praveen had studied together in the same college, which was closed abruptly.
A Selvaraj, who has been working as a crime reporter in Tamil Nad...
Read MoreA Selvaraj, who has been working as a crime reporter in Tamil Nadu since 1994, has several sensational scoops to his credit. In 1998, he exposed a cheating racket led by Divya Mathaji and her followers in Tiruchi. He broke several stories which caught nation’s attention, including the suicide of 2G scam accused Sadiq Batcha.
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