Mumbai: Two held for issuing bogus certificates of pvt varsities

The Mumbai polices crime branch has busted a racket involved in issuing fake degree certificates and marksheets of UGC-affiliated private universities, and arrested two persons, an official said on Thursday.

The Mumbai police's crime branch has busted a racket involved in issuing fake degree certificates and marksheets of UGC-affiliated private universities, and arrested two persons, an official said on Thursday. Acting on a tip-off, the Unit-11 of crime branch raided Prime Sapphire Education, an establishment in the western suburb of Borivali, on Wednesday, an official said.

The police had received information about a racket involved in issuing fake certificates and marksheets, he said. During the raid, the police found that the accused had charged money online and in cash to issue fake degrees and marksheets of private universities from Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Jaipur, Rajasthan, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, he said. The action was taken based on a complaint lodged by a 23-year-old student, who was cheated of Rs 1.31 lakh for a degree from Gujarat's Sabarmati University and a marksheet and degree certificate of a Madhya Pradesh-based private university, the official said. The police seized degree certificates and marksheets of more than 200 students from the spot, he said, adding that a laptop, two hard discs, cash, pen drives and other related documents were also recovered.

The accused allegedly collected money from students and took them to private universities, where they would mark a particular student's attendance for the next three years in one day.

The duo would also write answer sheets of all examinations of these three years on the same day, deputy commissioner of police Sangramsingh Nishandar (Detection-1) said. In some cases, students received degree certificates and marksheets without attending college and sitting for exams, he said. The arrested accused were produced before a court, which remanded them to police custody till January 27, the official added.