The victims — most of whom failed to clear NEET — have alleged that the accused contacted them and fooled them into paying money for a medical seat in the Banda-based college through the “central pool quota”. Most of the students targeted were those who could not qualify the NEET exam last year or were appearing for the second time.
On the written and telephonic complaints from these victims based out of Uttarakhand, Haryana, Delhi, Noida, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, police said that three main accused have been identified. “Sachin, Adarsh Singh and Pankaj Kumar Khateek are the main accused in the scam,” Sector 58 station officer Anil Kumar told TOI.
According to one of the FIRs lodged in the fraud, based on a complaint by Surendra Chauhan, her daughter who appeared for the NEET exam last year for the second time, was offered a seat in the college for Rs 30 lakh. Chauhan was asked to visit the college in January, where the accused took the money for his daughter’s seat. However, later, he was asked by the accused to forget about the money.
“When I called, the number of the accused was switched off. However, the accused subsequently made a WhatsApp call and claimed that we did not know about their reach into higher-ups and we should not complain or we will get killed,” he alleged. ACP-2 Rajnish Kumar told TOI that teams have been formed to arrest the accused.