Nine arrested in AP for medical PG entrance exam scam

Hyderabad: Nine persons, including seven students and two middlemen, were arrested on Saturday in connection with alleged irregularities in the post-graduate medical entrance test conducted by Vijayawada-based Dr NTR University of Health Sciences, police said. The CID, which made the arrests, said the scam was spread across multiple cities in the country and police have identified involvement of about a dozen persons in this regard. [caption id=“attachment_1388267” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image of Indian medical students. PTI [/caption] “Our teams are currently investigating the case in various cities including Mumbai and Gurgaon. Very soon we may come out with some more results,” Additional Director General of Police (CID), T Krishna Prasad said. He said the middlemen collected up to Rs 10 lakh as advance from students promising them question paper for the exam and the answer key. “The brokers collected original mark sheets of MBBS and SSC from students besides post-dated cheques and advance amount,” Krishna Prasad said, adding Muniswar Reddy and Sainath, along with other brokers, hatched the plan. The arrested brokers had business links even though they separately ran their educational consultancy services in Hyderabad, the ADG said. Those who paid hefty sums in advance were provided accommodation at various locations and also coaching based on the leaked question paper and key. The MET was held on 2 March. “These students secured ranks ranging from 2 to 25 in the medical PG entrance exam. Under management quota these seats are usually sold at Rs 75 lakh to Rs 1.5 crore,” Krishna Prasad said, adding that investigations are still on in the case. The state government had earlier ordered a CID inquiry into the alleged irregularities after a one-man committee, headed by State Council of Higher Education Chairman L Venugopal Reddy submitted its report to Governor ESL Narasimhan. A CID team visited the university and questioned some officials over whether they had any role into the scam as alleged by some aspirants. Around 15,000 students took the examinations held on 2 March for the 2,240-odd seats. However, hundreds of students had complained that some candidates had secured top ranks though they had failed in some subjects in graduation, besides some others performed poorly in PG entrance exams in other states. PTI