Assam: Police bust racket of fake students collecting scholarships illegally

Barpeta, Nov 2: A racket of fake students collecting Ishan-Uday and minority scholarships illegally has been busted by Barpeta police. The racket has fraudulently siphoned off crores of rupees in guise of students of some colleges in the state.

The Barpeta police have arrested two accused in connection with the scam in the name of Ishan Uday Scholarship. The two arrested accused have been identified as Zeherul Islam and Habibur Rahman.

The two arrested accused are lodged in Jaharpam village in Barpeta.

The police conducted a search of the area and apprehended the two suspects who had fraudulently withdrawn the student's scholarship money.

Barpeta Additional Superintendent of Police, Dr Pradeep Saikia, informed the reporters about the whole scam at a press conference .

It is to be noted that students who pass the Higher Secondary Examination with 75 per cent marks are being provided with the Ishan-Uday scholarship of about Rs 60,000 per year. Similarly, the Central Government's Ministry of Human Resource Development also provides meritorious students from the minority communities with the opportunity to study at some of the leading educational institutions outside the state.

The racket has been using passwords and OTP of some colleges in the state as well as forging the signatures of college principals in the names of fake students.

It may be recalled that since 2018, the two accused have fraudulently withdrawn crores of rupees of Ishan Uday Scholarship in the names of Barpeta and Bongaigaon College, Baniyarapara College, Koyakusi College, Harendra-Chitra College, and CK College in Abhayapuri.

For the past several years, there have been demands for stringent punishment in the state to wipe out the cycle that has been prevalent in the state, however, no such stern action has been taken by the authorities so far.