5 held for duping students on pretext of giving certificates

Police arrested five persons including a woman on charges of duping students by claiming that they have authorisation to provide degree and diploma certificates of different educational institutions across the country.

The accused were arrested on Friday night based on a complaint lodged against them by a victim.

Police said the accused used to run an educational institution - Jayashree Academy – at Behala claiming as if it was an authorised "learning centre" for universities of different parts of the country including Bharat University, Bundelkhand University, Kanpur University, Karnataka State Open University, Acharya Nagarjuna University, Binanayak Mission University, Bihar Board and Jharkhand Intermediate Council. The prime accused Sudipta Halder, who used to act as the director of the fake academy, had excellent communication skills and always used to be neatly dressed up to maintain a "good image" before the students. It had helped him to woo many students to give money to get certificates from his academy. Besides 43-year-old Sudipta, the police have also arrested Murshid Sarwar from Tiljala, Sanjan Kr Dutta from Baishnabghata at Patuli, Payel Sarkar Dutta from Sodepur in North 24 Parganas and one Mokitul Islam in this connection.

While describing their modus operandi, a police officer said: "They first used to induce gullible students saying they have to go through some classes in the academy and subsequently they will be getting their certificates. After taking some money at the initial stage as admission fees, they used to keep asking for money from such students showing different reasons. At the same time, the due time of giving certificates used to get delayed. Finally, they used to give fake certificates of different universities against payment of a hefty amount."

The crime came to light following a complaint lodged by a youth, who had neither been called for any classes in the academy nor did he get any certificate. "In this particular case, the accused had initially demanded Rs 25,000. The youth had given Rs 5,000 and assured of giving the rest of the money in installments to get a degree certificate of a distant course. The youth approached the cops as they had asked him to give Rs 10,000 more to get the certificate despite not asking him to attend any class for the course," the police officer said.

The police conducted a raid in the academy and seized a large number of blank marksheets, certificates, admit cards and pass certificates of various universities and boards. They actually used to print the certificates of their own and they had also prepared forged rubber stamps in the name of offices of Controller of Examinations of various universities or boards and principals of some colleges.

The police have also seized a hard disc containing data on different students and about the payment made by them in favour of the academy.