Man duped over girl’s MBBS admission, plays detective and traps con

A South Delhi based man, who desperately wanted to get his daughter admitted in MBBS course, was allegedly duped of around Rs 19.30 lakh by a group of cons. But, call it sheer luck, he ran into one of the alleged cons outside a marriage function in East Delhi after almost eight months and cleverly laid a trap, which later led to the con’s arrest. However, the police are yet to crack the whole racket. 

The complainant, Rajendra Singh, is an officer at Life Insurance Corporation of India and lives with his family in South Delhi’s Lodhi Colony. On July 2014, he received a call from a fake consultant who claimed to have several contacts and said they could get Singh’s daughter admitted in the best medical institutes across India. The next day, a representative was sent, who told Singh that they would charge Rs 25 lakh for the whole process, to which Singh agreed, said a police source on Thursday.

Singh, along with his family, was then instructed to go to Jaipur twice in August, where they met other members of the alleged racket and kept paying them money in instalments. They promised to get Singh’s daughter admitted in one SSS college but later stepped back. In September, Singh was instructed to go to Lucknow, where he met more members of the alleged racket, who now claimed to get his daughter admitted in any government medical college there, on some quota. In Lucknow, Singh paid the largest instalment (Rs 16 lakh) but when he did not receive any admission letter, which was about to reach him by post, he realised he that was cheated, said the police source.

Singh was traumatised and suffered from severe depression, for which he reportedly had to take medical leave. “I went to the police in January, who were reluctant in registering an FIR. So it took it on myself and started tracking the gang. I found one of them, identified as Murali Kumar from Madhubani in Bijar, over Facebook. And to verify the details, I cross-checked with the Bihar voters list. When I found him there, I sent a friend to enquire about him, but that did not help,” said Singh.

Last week, Singh was driving across Shakarpur, and he suddenly spotted Murali outside a marriage function. He approached Murali and told him that he did not care about the money lost and wanted Murali to arranged his daughter’s admission this year. Murali fell for the trick and came to Singh’s residence on May 4. Singh immediately called up the police and Murali was nabbed.

Investigation of the case is underway and other members of the gang will be nabbed soon, said a police official investigating the case.