Rajkot: An organised post-matric scholarship scam targeting scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST) students has been uncovered in Junagadh, with police registering a case against the director of an educational institution and his accomplices.Based on a complaint filed by S A Solanki of the parole furlough squad, Junagadh City B Division police registered an FIR against one Darshan Mesvaniya, who along with unidentified accomplices allegedly ran a private coaching institute called Gujarat Education.The accused have been booked under BNS sections dealing with cheating, breach of trust and forgery, along with provisions of the Information Technology (IT) Act.According to investigators, the accused targeted SC and ST students by promising to get them external admissions to courses such as Master of Social Work (MSW), Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) and fashion designing.Students were promised 100% govt scholarships, exemption from college attendance requirements and assurances that they would be able to pass their exams. After persuading the students, the operators took their academic certificates, school leaving certificates, identity documents, photographs and other personal records.Students who had active bank accounts were told to open new ones with payment banks. During the account-opening process, biometric details, personal documents and one-time passwords (OTPs) were used.Once the accounts were activated, the director and his accomplices retained the passbooks, ATM cards and bank kits instead of handing them over to the students. New mobile connections were also obtained and linked to the bank accounts, so the operators could get transaction-related OTPs and alerts.Scholarship applications were then submitted online. Once state govt scholarship funds were deposited in the new accounts, the money was allegedly withdrawn from ATMs without the knowledge or consent of the beneficiaries.Investigators also found instances where scholarships were obtained using falsified records for students who had neither fulfilled attendance requirements nor taken the prescribed exams.A raid at the administrative premises of the institute resulted in the seizure of 149 bank kits, 110 sim cards, nine mobile phones and a large number of certificates of students.Digital forensic examination of seized phones uncovered questionable mark sheets. These documents have been forwarded to the concerned educational boards for verification and authentication.Preliminary scrutiny of 40 bank accounts found that 21 students had received govt scholarship payments totalling Rs 24.44 lakh, out of which Rs 11 lakh was withdrawn illicitly, police said.Police officials expect the amount defrauded to rise as more beneficiary accounts are subjected to forensic scrutiny.
