Rs 2.3 lakh gone, no college seat for son: How admission scam targeted Delhi cop
Two men have been arrested in connection with the racket from a Ghaziabad flat. Police also recovered Rs 1.34 crore in cash.
4 min read
More than 30 complaints were found lodged against the accused, with many of them already transferred to the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police. (Representational/File photo)This head constable with the Delhi Police was an anxious parent. It was already July — the last month of the admission season in the Capital — and her son, who just passed Class XII, had not made it to the admission list of any of his preferred engineering colleges.
Then on July 28, she received an SMS on her phone that felt like a lifeline, a police officer said. “The SMS was from ‘JM-IPUUDL-P’, offering her son admission at IP University through the management quota. The SMS carried a contact number of a woman who went by the name Lavanya,” DCP (Dwarka) Ankit Singh said.
When the head constable contacted Lavanya, police said she was told that she needs to come to the company’s office — 604, Bhandari House, Nehru Place, New Delhi — where she would be provided further details.
“At the office, the head constable was told that the firm has access to some college seats through the management quota allotted to college staff. After negotiations, the fraudsters agreed to secure admission for the head constable’s son in Surajmal College for Rs 3.5 lakh,” DCP Singh said.
The head constable, who had been in the police force for over 15 years, didn’t mind the expense — it was to ensure her son’s future. So on July 29, she reached the same office at Bhandari House — with Rs 2.3 lakh in cash.
“She was told that she can pay the remaining amount once the admission is done. The fraudsters said her son’s name would be displayed in the college admission list in the next 15 days,” a police officer, who was part of the investigation, said.
But the head constable never heard from the fraudsters again. And her son’s name never appeared on any admission list. Lavanya’s phone was unreachable, and the doors of 604, Bhandari House, were shut, the police officer said.
With the admission season officially over, on August 25, the head constable filed a complaint.
A police team got to work. They tracked Lavanya’s phone number and analysed its IP address and call details records. The number from which the admission message arrived was also put under surveillance, said police.
“Using digital footprint analysis, IP tracing, and CCTV camera footage from around the Bhandari House area, the accused’s location was zeroed down to Ghaziabad,” a police officer said.
Police said a raid was conducted at a flat in Niti Khand area of Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, on Thursday, and two men — Kushagra Srivastava (35) and Chinmaya Sinha (32) — were arrested. Police also recovered Rs 1.34 crore in cash, six high-end mobile phones, a high-end laptop, and documents of students and colleges, the officer said.
Explaining the modus operandi of the admission fraud racket, DCP Singh said, “The duo lured parents of aspiring students who graduated from Class XII, through bulk SMS services, by posing as admission consultants for reputed colleges and universities in Delhi. They assured admissions under management quota, collected hefty sums, and then went underground by shutting down offices and switching off phones.”
More than 30 complaints were found lodged against the accused, with many of them already transferred to the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police. Further questioning of the accused is going on, the police said.
Police said the woman, Lavanya, is yet to be traced.
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