Medical Admission Racket Kingpin Arrested

Kolkata: On Wednesday, the Kolkata police arrested the kingpin of a racket involving admissions to medical colleges, as well as his associates.

Jayanta Das, 52 and his associate Pintu Dey, 42 were arrested from Dum Dum’s Mall Road based on a complaint filed last December by Ashish Kumar Laha.

The complainant alleged that he had been cheated of Rs 12 lakh, for which he had been promised a seat in a medical college for his son, a senior police officer said.

They had been running a coaching centre called Vivekananda Institute at Santoshpur in south Kolkata, and had advertised in newspapers, promising admission to both government-run and private medical colleges, he said.

The police had earlier arrested three others — husband-wife duo Chaitali Dutta, Ritwick Dutta and Ujjal Saha — who were part of the gang, and recovered Rs 60 lakh from them, the officer said.

“They used to show forged certificates to those who came to their institution in order to gain their trust,” he said. Several complaints had been filed when Vivekanand Institute’s office had suddenly vanished last August, the officer said.