Kurnool: Five MBBS students have been arrested on grounds of allegedly producing fake caste and income certificates for procuring admission in medical colleges, here on Monday. A sixth student has been reported absconding. The district police have also arrested two more people, who facilitated the entire scam.
In the disclosure, Kurnool Police Superintendent R.K. Ravikrishna revealed that 6 MBBS aspirants from Andhra and Telangana obtained fake income, caste and residence certificates from the Kallur tehsildar's office via Mee Seva centres.
They were assisted by 2 middlemen, namely, Shaik Shameer of Kurnool and T Srinivas Reddy of Anantapur. Narrating the details of the fraud, Ravikrishna said that Shameer and Srinivas started with identifying aspirants from OC category, who secured ranks between 2000-10000, but failed to get admission in any of the medical colleges.
They finally shortlisted six such candidates, promising them admission at low donations. They provided them with fake certificates under BC-A and BC-D categories, along with fake income, residence and transfer certificates, through Mee Seva services. Once all the fake documents were in place, these students participated in counselling under reservation category, and successfully secured admission in MBBS program at NTR Health University, Vijaywada. The duo charged Rs 3-5 lakh from each student for facilitating their admissions.
The fraud came to the limelight when Kallur tehsidar carried out physical verification of documents, and found discrepancies in it. This was reported to the district police, who investigated and eventually arrested all the accused on Monday. The arrested students have been identified as G Prathima of Ongole, L Nikhila Reddy of Mahbubnagar, V Lavanya Devi of Kakinada, K C Bhavana Reddy and Abram Alikhan.
The sixth accused, V Lavanya Reddy is absconding, along with her parents. Police have also arrested the parents of other five students for aiding them. Mee Seva is an initiative by government of Andhra Pradesh (now runs as 2 different portals for Andhra and Telangana), for digitizing the process of documentation of proofs and certificates, for individuals and companies