Fake degree racket busted in city, 4 arrested

Kanpur: The Kanpur police busted a gang involved in selling fake degrees and arrested four people on Thursday. Police have recovered 900 fake degrees, marksheets of around 14 universities, provisional certificates, migration booklets of various universities and a fake seal of deputy registrar of CSJMU from the accused.The syndicate was spread across nine states—Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, MP and Chhattisgarh, and provided fake degrees of high school to BTech, BPharma, LLB and others in the name of admission to private universities. The highest number of 357 fake degrees in the name of CSJMU were recovered.
Police Commissioner Raghubir Lal said that information about the gang providing fake marksheets, degrees and migration certificates came to light after which Kidwai Nagar police raided a tuition centre near Gaushala Chauraha and arrested four youths with fake degrees.The accused were identified as Shailendra Kumar from Raebareli, Unchahar, living in Saket Nagar; Nagendra Mani Tripathi from Kaushambi; Jogendra from Ghaziabad; and Ashwani Kumar from Shuklaganj.The Police Commissioner said that the gang's kingpin, Shailendra, was MSc qualified and taught maths to children at the centre since 2003. Nagendra was MCA, while Jogendra was high school pass and Ashwani was 12th pass.Shailendra later began helping students fill private forms and gradually entered the fake degrees business. The gang was in contact with clerks and employees of 14 universities of nine states.During interrogation, the accused revealed that they were in contact with clerks and employees of 14 universities of nine states who used to provide university degrees to them. They told the police that they charged Rs 50,000 for high school-intermediate, Rs 1.50 lakh for BTech, Rs 50,000 to Rs 75,000 for graduation, Rs 2.50 lakh for BPharma-DPharma and Rs 1.50 lakh for LLB degrees. Police also found names of 10 lawyers of Kanpur who had obtained fake LLB degrees the gang.Employees associated with the gang also uploaded the fake marksheets online on universities' websites so that people would not suspect the documents.The Police Commissioner said post-dated cheques worth Rs 50 lakh to Rs 60 lakh were found from the accused. Shailendra acquired properties worth crores, bought an apartment in Saket Nagar for Rs 50 lakh, a flat in Panki for Rs 30 lakh, a plot in Ramaipur for Rs 75 lakh, land at 2 places in Bidhnu worth Rs 50 lakh each, bought a car worth Rs 20 lakh, and built his tuition centre.The Police Commissioner said that on Feb 19, the body of an educational student counsellor was found in room number 105 of a hotel located in the Harbansh Mohal police station area, identified as Anand Srivastava (45). A suicide note was also found in which he had apologised. Investigation revealed that Anand was in contact with the gang and provided marksheets and degrees from Shri Krishna University for the gang.Mayank Bhardwaj from Chhatarpur, Manish alias Ravi from Hyderabad, Vineet from Ghaziabad, Shekhu from Bhopal and Shubham Dubey associated with the gang were absconding, and three police teams have been formed to nab them.Police recovered fake marksheets, degrees, grade sheets, provisional certificates, migration booklets of various universities and a fake seal of deputy registrar of CSJMU from the accused. The accused also confessed issuing 80 fake migration certificates.