Berhampur: Police have arrested 4 persons, including a man and his son, for allegedly running a fake certificate racket in Berhampur city of Odisha’s Ganjam district.
Speaking to media persons on the racket, Berhampur SP Sarvana Vivek M said a large number of fake certificates of different boards and universities in Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have been seized by police during raids on the places of the accused.
The accused include Daitari Behera, a school teacher of Debijhar under Khallikot block, his son Amrut Prasad Behera, Kishore Kumar Behera of Ranihat under Mangalabag police station in Cuttack and Prashant Kumar Sahu of Mangallpur under Dhenkanal Sadar police limits.
Giving details on the case, police said Manoranjan Gouda, a teacher in a private school in Berhampur, had contacted Daitari for BEd training of his wife in 2016. Gouda had given around Rs 1 lakh to Daitari in phases towards education expenses of his wife including admission in Acharya Nagarjuna University at Guntur in Andhra Pradesh.
After studying for 3 years, Daitari’s wife appeared at the examination as notified by the university. But Daitari did not give the BEd certificate to her and started avoiding Gouda. After Gouda insisted on the certificate, Daitari gave him 4 semester certificates and a provisional BEd certificate.
Suspecting that Daitari was playing something foul, Gouda went to the Nagarjuna University to verify the authenticity of the certificates. After checking their records, the university officials informed Gouda that his wife had failed in 2 semester examinations and the other two semester certificates and provisional certificates were fake.
When Gouda confronted Daitari with the information, the latter threatened him. Following this, Gouda filed a complaint at Gosainnuagaon police station.
During investigation, the police came to know that Daitgari was running the fake certificate racket for a long time. After a person approached him for a certificate, he used to inform Kishore who was sending the right quality of papers to Prashant.
Prashant was printing the certificate with duplicate logo and the name of the candidate in his own press. Later, he was sending it to Daitari who was giving it to the person for a hefty amount, the police said.
In the direction of the SP, police teams conducted raids on the houses of Kishore and Prashant. They seized computer, printer, seals, logos and a large number of duplicate certificates from Prashant’s press.
