Fake degree racket busted

Gurdeep Singh Mann

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, March 4

The police claimed to have busted a gang of literate youths allegedly involved in selling fake degrees and diplomas for Rs 35,000 to Rs 60,000.

The interrogation of two arrested accused — Raman Kashyap of Karnal and Tarsem Garg of Bathinda — has revealed that the youth, apart from preparing and selling fake degrees, also arranged dummy students to appear in examinations on behalf of others.

Operating the entire network on the internet, they had no problem searching for people who wanted fake degrees.

SP (Detective) Bikramjeet Singh said all the accused involved in the case were highly qualified and had been doing the illegal work in a planned manner for the past three years.

“Apart from 358 fake degrees and mark-sheets, a central processing unit (CPU) of a computer, a laptop and two printers have also been recovered from the possession of the accused,” Bikramjeet said.

He pointed out that gang was busted during 10 days of investigation by inspector Paramjeet Singh, inspector Rashpal Singh, sub-inspector Trikha and ASI Rajpal Singh.

During investigation, the police visited various educational institutes within and outside the state.

The accused Tarsem Garg, arrested from the city, had 27 fake certificates of 198 different universities.

“They have even made websites of fake universities with fake names to show to the vulnerable clients,” the SP said.

Not ruling out the possibility of getting private or government jobs by the candidates, the SP said in-depth investigations into the case would throw more light on the case.

A case under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120-B of the IPC has been registered in this regard at the Civil Lines police station. The police said more arrests would be made in the coming days.