Digging deeper into a fake educational certificate racket, Bolangir police have so far arrested 21 people including 19 job aspirants, an owner of a coaching centre and a computer teacher, police said on Monday.
The racket came to the fore after the job aspirants furnished the bogus mark sheets and certificates to secure postal jobs in the district.
Carrying out a probe into the sensitive case, the Bolangir Police conducted a raid at the ‘Reliance Education Institute’ and seized more than 1000 duplicate certificates of 41 reputed universities, verification reports, seals, diaries and rubber stamps, mobile phones, bank accounts, land documents.
The raid team also seized cash worth Rs 3.67 lakh from the possession of the coaching centre owner Manoj Mishra.
Notably, in 2022, applications were invited for recruitment to posts of postmaster, assistant postmaster and Dav Sevak in 83 branch post offices. At least 37 job aspirants had produced fake mark sheets and certificates from Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh to secure postal jobs.
Doubting the veracity of the certificates, the Postal Superintendent launched an enquiry. He suspected foul play as all the aspirants had got 97-98% on the mark sheet and lodged a written complaint in this connection.
Following the complaint by the postal department, a special team was formed on the instructions of Bolangir SP and raids were conducted.
Meanwhile, reports suggest the fake certificate racket had been running for the last eight to ten years. Many job aspirants have illegally acquired jobs by producing fake certificates from a particular coaching centre.
On the other hand, many government employees have gone missing after the fake certificate racket was busted. It is believed they had all produced fake certificates from this coaching centre to land their jobs.
A thorough probe will expose all the job aspirants who have got jobs by producing fake certificates from the institute, locals demanded.
Speaking to the media, Bolangir SP Nitin Kushalkar said, “Based on media reports, we conducted a raid at Reliance Education Institute and seized at least 1000 fake certificates. We have arrested 19 job aspirants in this connection and all of them will be produced in court today.”
“Crores of rupees have been illegally made and used to buy lands. A special team has been formed to probe the matter as it is a sensitive case,” he added.
(Reported by Manoranjan Joshi, OTV)