The CB-CID in Chennai arrested three more medical students along with their fathers on Saturday, following a tip-off that the students allegedly used proxy candidates to clear their NEET Medical entrance examination.
A well placed source in the CB-CID confirmed to TNM that three students from SRM Medical College, Sree Balaji Medical College and Hospital, and Sathya Sai Medical college, were taken into custody following a tip-off.
“Praveen studying in SRM was arrested along with father Saravanan, Rahul studying in Sree Balaji was arrested along with father Davis and a third student Abhirami was also arrested on Saturday. The third student’s father is unwell and hence could not be arrested. All of them are from Chennai,” the source stated.
The arrests have been made less than a week after Udit Surya, a student from Theni Medical College, was found to have used a proxy candidate who wrote the NEET exam for him in Mumbai and cleared it. Udit, along with his parents, were arrested from Tirupati on Thursday after they went missing from their house in Chennai. The impersonator allegedly attended classes for 20 days before Udit Surya replaced him. The scam came out in the open after the dean of the college conducted an internal probe reverifying the documents of the first-year MBBS students.
Following Udit’s arrest, more MBBS students were picked up by CB-CID in what looks like a larger racket. The arrests were made based on a tip-off by Udit himself, according to the CB-CID source.
The authorities also arrested George Joseph, an agent from Thiruvananthapuram, who is said to have helped Udit arrange a proxy candidate to write the NEET exam on his behalf.
According to reports, George Joseph is said to have taken Rs 20 lakh from Udit Surya’s father Dr Venkatesan to arrange for the proxy candidate.
Udit Surya and family have now been remanded in judicial custody following their arrest on Thursday.
(With inputs from Sreedevi Jayarajan)
Source: The News Minute