Ex airhostess, engineering graduate held in MBBS admission racket

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A former airhostess and an engineering graduate have been arrested from a hotel in Odisha's tourist resort Puri in connection with a medical college admission racket, police said.

Bidhannagar Deputy Commissioner of Police (Detective department) K.P. Barui said the duo along another accomplice were nabbed from Puri Tuesday for allegedly duping people by promising them seats in MBBS course at a private medical college in the city.

Officers of the Bidhannagar (East) police station who had gone to Puri on a tip off, arrested Partha Guha - an engineering graduate - alongside former airhostess Sanchita Ganguly alias Sudeshna Roy, besides Amit Saha. All of them are in their 20s. Over Rs.1 crore in cash and a car were seized from them.

"They used to take hefty amounts - between Rs.19 lakh and Rs.35 lakh - from students and their guardians. We have so far got reports that they duped 20 students," said Barui.

Two other people - Nasim Anwar and Shakil Ahmed - were rounded up here Sunday last following a complaint filed by Murai Mohan Koley, who had allegedly paid Rs.20 lakh to Partha and Sanchita to ensure MBBS admission for her daughter at the medical college.

The gang had set up a swanky office at Salt Lake. They used to run a coaching centre from the address and promised admission in the medical college to a number of wannabe doctors.

The modus operandi was quite complicated. The racketeers accepted cheques which they encashed at the branch of a nationalised bank in Bihar opened in the name of the medical college. The money was then transferred to another account of a public sector bank in Patna which the accused had opened in the name of a fake construction farm

"They used to withdraw the money from the second account," said Barui.

When the students' names did not appear on the merit list despite giving the amount, they got suspicious and went to the Salt Lake office, but found it closed. Then Kolay and subsequently others lodged the complaints.