Fake marksheet gang was active for 22 yrs

Fake marksheet gang was active for 22 yrs

Mastermind A Retd Jal Nigam Employee: STF

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Lucknow:  03.01.2021

The gang running a degree and marksheet racket unearthed by Special Task Force from Alambagh on Friday was active for the past 22 years and had given fake marksheets and degrees to hundreds of people for jobs and admissions, said officials on Saturday.

As many as 342 marksheets and 115 degrees of Lucknow University, eight marksheets of Sampurnanand Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya, 34 marksheets of MA and 50 blank marksheets of Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj University, were seized along with eight blank marksheets of Government Polytechnic in Lucknow, and marksheets of various schools and institutes.

The officials said the gang charged price for marksheets as per the need of the seeker.

Dy SP, STF, Avnishwar Chandra Srivastava, who is conducting the probe, said the interrogation of the three arrested accused, identified as Sunil Kumar Sharma, Lallan Kumar and Vishwajeet Kumar, has revealed that the gang was active since 1998.

“Sunil Sharma, the gang’s mastermind is a retired government employee from Jal Nigam, Lallan worked as a private school teacher, and Vishwajeet was the printer,” said the officer.

“The trio used to charge money as per the requirement. If one needed marksheet for a job then they charged from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh depending upon the post, while for admissions they charged Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000, depending upon the course,” he said. Marsksheets with masters in science were the most sought ones, the officer said.

“We are tracing some people who came in their contact and took fake marksheets,” the DySP said.

They used to target candidates studying in coaching institutes of tier-two cities and those approaching offices of job consultants.

They started the fraud in 1998 when there was huge demand for fake certificates, their business dipped when digitization started in 2014, he added.

Officials said the gang charged price for marksheets as per the need of the seeker