3 men held for cheating people on pretext of facilitating MBBS admissions

NEW DELHI: Three men were arrested for allegedly cheating people on the pretext of facilitating MBBS admissions on concession by impersonating as dean or principals of reputed medical colleges, police said on Wednesday. The accused have been identified as Sumantra Gupta (41), a resident of West Bengal, Asikur Rahman (31) and Dharmesh Kalita (33), both residents of Assam, they said.

On July 25, a complaint was received regarding an online cyber fraud where the complainant alleged that he got the mobile number of one "Dr R B Gupta", purportedly dean/principal of a medical college in Bihar, police said. The complainant contacted that person for admission of his son in MBBS in the college, following which the latter told him about a vacant seat of a dropout student and demanded Rs five lakh for admission formalities, police said. On July 24, the complainant deposited Rs 2,50,000 in a bank account given by Gupta and again on July 25, deposited Rs five lakh in the said account. Thereafter, the person stopped responding to the calls and messages of the complainant, a senior police officer said.

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During investigation, the bank account was found registered in the name of Rehman. Police found that the accused persons were active near Guwahati and arrested Rehman and Kalita from Assam. Later, Sumanta, who was the mastermind of the fraud, was also arrested, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Rohini) Guriqbal Singh Sidhu said. Rehman got Rs 35,000 as commission for providing his bank account, while Kalita disclosed that he used to arrange bank accounts for Sumanta, police said. Sumantra told the police that he is a doctor and came in contact with one Naghma Khan and started working with her.

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They were after the students who wanted admission in medical colleges and in the name of donation, they used to get their commission, the DCP said. But after the introduction of NEET, admissions through quota/donation got tough. So, they started luring and cheating people on the pretext of facilitating admission in MBBS on concessional seats by impersonating dean and principal of reputed medical colleges, Sidhu said. Sumatra, being a doctor, was well-versed with the procedure being adopted for admission in medical colleges. He used to target doctors as most of them want to get their children enrolled for MBBS, police said. He runs a nursing home at Jalpaiguri in West Bengal and was previously involved in three fraud cases, they added.