Representational.
New Delhi: In Assam, police arrested eight people in a cash-for-marks scam. Police said that the accused were conducting digital tampering of mark sheets, and police got a whiff of the scam after an investigation was run over discrepancies in the mark sheet of a student from Ganesh Lal Choudhury College, affiliated with Gauhati University, NDTV reported.
Police said that they are widening their investigation on the matter since there is scope for more arrests.
Those arrested have been identified as K Krishnamurthy, Ismail Hussain, Alamgir Khan, Moinul Haque, Abul Baser, Aminul Islam (Kalgachia), Hamezuddin (Nagaon) and Shivtosh Mahato (Dhubri). NDTV reports that Krishnamurthy is the kingpin who heads the university team and lures students into fraud. He is an employee of the entity that handles data entry for the university.
The Ganesh College noticed inflated marks on the particular student Azizul Haque’s marksheet when compared to the actual marks he obtained, and a complaint was lodged with the police over discrepancies on the marksheet.
CID sources informed us that the student’s marks were checked by the college invigilators, and then his mark sheet was matched with the full batch marks that were sent by the invigilators and paper checkers to the university. When he was questioned, Haque admitted that he paid Rs 10,000 to get his marks changed in the first, third, fourth and fifth semesters.
CID sources informed us that they have found at least 10 instances of inflated marks and that at least 50 students have made payments.
The fresh incident of fraud in academics surfaces when outrage is still burning over the NEET-UG paper leak, and arrests were made on cases registered regarding it in several states.
In the Assam case, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma explained that those operating the computer system dealing with mark sheets at Gauhati University took money from students to increase their marks.
He said that six cases were noted in Barpeta, and the prime accused in the case has been caught. The CM claimed that the case had been analysed under his watch for the past seven days, and it was being probed thoroughly.