Saturday, September 24, 2011

Medical seat sale racket

It is not only Munnabhai in the blockbuster 'Munnabhai MBBS' who lands a medical seat with a proxy writing the entrance exams for him. There are gangs engaged in similar operations and making huge bucks by selling medical and dental seats, Karnataka Police have found.
Medical and dental seats cornered through proxies passing entrance exams are sold for sums ranging from Rs.7.5 million to Rs.9 million, police discovered after busting the racket.
Eleven people belonging to two groups involved in the racket have been arrested, Bangalore's Commissioner of Police B.G. Jyothiprakash Mirji told reporters Monday.
Of the arrested, eight were held for offering medical seats and three for dental seats, he said.
Mirji said the gang members would engage 'qualified and employed' people to write the common entrance test (CET) conducted by the Karnataka government for professional courses (medical, dental and engineering) courses.
The gangs would also engage such people to write similar test conducted for private colleges by COMED-K, a consortium of private medical, dental and engineering colleges.
The proxy 'students' who got the medical and dental seats would surrender them and these seats were sold by the gang as management quota seats for prices ranging from Rs.7.5 million to Rs.9 million, Mirji said.
Police stumbled on the racket on the complaints of a few students who had been promised the management quota seats but did not get them even after paying the amount to gang members.
The students went to police after they were threatened by the gang members when they sought return of the money.
Mirji said most of the students duped were from other states.
He said the arrests took place in Bangalore Saturday. Police seized Rs.2.5 million in cash and demand drafts amounting to Rs.1.25 million from the arrested.
Mirji appealed to students and their wards who had been cheated to provide details to the city police.