Cops bust fake degree racket, three arrested

New Delhi: Three men, including a Delhi University graduate, were arrested for allegedly running a pan-India fake degree racket under which they sold about 50,000 forged certificates of universities and school boards, police said on Monday.

The three accused,  identified as Pankaj Arora, 35, Pawiter Singh alias Sonu, 40, and Gopal Krishna alias Pali, 40, were arrested between January 5 and January 25, the police said.

During interrogation, the accused revealed that they had sold at least 50,000 fake degrees and marksheets of various universities and school boards. They used to give advertisements in newspapers, promising students to provide all sorts of certificates and degrees, DCP (West) Vijay Kumar said.  

The varsities whose fake websites the accused had created, included Sambalpur University, Odisha, University of Allahabad, Sikkim University, Karnataka State Open University, and Nava Nalanda Mahavihara.

On January 3, Vijay Kumar, a resident of Sikar, Rajasthan, filed a complaint at Hari Nagar police station. He told the police that after seeing an advertisement in a local newspaper in Rajasthan, he contacted the office of “SRKM Education and Welfare Society” in Hari Nagar to get admission in Class 10.

Arora, a DU graduate and owner of the institute, convinced him to pay `1.30 lakh for admission and exam fees for six of his friends and himself. After some days, Kumar received Class 10 marksheets, migration certificates etc of Board of Secondary Education, Andhra Pradesh, through post, the police said.

Kumar was shocked for neither he nor his friends had appeared for the exam. When he contacted Arora, he told him the certificates were genuine. When Kumar applied for a passport in Sikar, he was told they were not genuine.

Subsequently, a police case was registered.