Duo arrested on charges of duping MBBS aspirants

Two persons were arrested from Dum Dum on charges of cheating students after assuring them to help in getting a chance to study MBBS. Police said that the accused are Jayanta Das and Pintu Dey and they had opened a training center called Vivekananda Institution at Shyampukur to prepare students for state Joint Entrance Examination.

They had assured help to many youth to get a chance in MBBS against some money. A person from Howrah had given Rs 12 lakh to the duo when they had assured his son’s admission in one of the medical colleges in the city.

The person had given them the money in April and often used to visit the institution but on May 28 he found the office closed.

Local people were also clueless when the person had asked them about the institution being closed whereas some had told him that it was closed for the past one week. The person had tried to contact them several times over phone but both of their cell phones were switched off.

After failing to contact them despite repeated attempts, the person had lodged a complaint with the police. Acting on a tip-off, the police conducted a raid in Dum Dum and arrested the duo. Police suspect that they had cheated many other persons.

Meanwhile, a woman was arrested by the police from her residence at New Town in another incident of cheating. A senior police officer said that the accused Priyanka Sethiya (35), used to stop by at various shops posing as a person who visited the shop to buy clothes worth a few lakh for business purpose. She owns two flats in New Town and in South Kolkata.

She had visited shops of Jayprakash Borlia in Lake and Nilanjan Bhattacharya in Girish Park on July 29 and June 28 respectively. In both the cases, she chose the clothes that she wanted to buy and told them that she forgot to bring money or her debit card by mistake. She then asked the shop owners to send someone along with her to take the money and at the same time will deliver the clothes including the sarees and bed covers.

After going a bit far from the shops in her own car, she would ask employees of the 

shops to bring a bottle of water. When the persons brought water, she would flee with the car containing the clothes she had taken from the shops.