Admissions scam: ‘Mastermind’ held

NEW DELHI: The two-month-long hunt for the mastermind of the Ramjas admission racket ended on Tuesday with the police claiming they had arrested a middle-aged man, Iliyas, in connection with the case. Although an outsider, the accused is well known on the campus as Iliyas Tau, police said.
Four former students of Delhi University, who were allegedly involved in arranging fake admissions, were also arrested on Tuesday.Police are hopeful that Iliyas will disclose the names of officials of Ramjas and other DU colleges who were involved in clearing these admissions.
Delhi Police’s top brass, including DCP North IB Rani, were tightlipped about Iliyas’ arrest and refused to provide details. The officials also did not divulge the names of the four ex-students arrested on Tuesday.
A source said Iliyas Tau “is a middle-aged man who resides in North Delhi area and has good contacts in Delhi University. We are still verifying whether he was ever a student of Delhi University because he is the mastermind of the whole racket, from making fake mark-sheets to coordinating with the parents of the applicants and securing admission”. The arrest of the four former DU students suggests that a large number of alumni might be involved in the racket.
On Friday also, four persons were arrested — Sahil Gulati, a 2nd-year SRCC student; Mukul, a 2nd-year Ramjas student; Sanchit, a Ramjas ex-student and cyber café owner Rahul. The arrests followed the registration of 28 FIRs last month for 28 fake admissions in different courses, including BCom, BA Pass, Economics (H) and others in Ramjas College. The scam was first reported by The Times of India.
Sources said Iliyas and some ex-students of Delhi University had planned the fake admission racket at Rahul’s cyber café in the Vijay Nagar area. “We will now be able to find out the Ramjas staff involved in the racket. So far, they have pleaded innocence whenever we have questioned them. We have strong suspicions that such a large racket could not have been run without the help of an insider,” said a senior police officer.
The police will now question Iliyas and the other accused about the total money charged from the students enrolled in Ramjas with fake certificates. They suspect that the accused made more than Rs 1 crore by charging up to Rs 6 lakh each. The police will also interrogate Iliyas about his involvement in fake admissions in previous years, because five fake admissions were detected in Ramjas College last year.