NEW DELHI: Police have unearthed more than 300 fake nursery admissions through the quota for poor students in top Delhi schools and arrested four people in the racket.

The principal of Bal Bharti School, Pitampura, has been examined and her office raided on Tuesday, as cops said school authorities could be involved and claimed that some schools took "unusually long" to furnish admission data. TOI was the first to report the scam, concerning admissions to the 2014-15 batch.

READ ALSO: FIR on fake EWS admission racket in top Delhi schools

Police said the admission racket was highly organized. The agents managed admissions in fictitious names under the economically weaker sections (EWS) quota and later got the names and quota changed in school records with the help of officials.

"The schools where fake admissions have been detected are Delhi Public School (Rohini, Vasant Kunj, RK Puram and Mathura Road), Modern School (Humayun Road), Lancer Convent, Ryan International School, Montfort School (Ashok Vihar), G D Goenka (Rohini), Vikas Bharti (Rohini), Bal Bharti School (Pitampura) and Heritage School (Rohini). Verification of the EWS certificates used for admissions in many other schools is still under process," joint commissioner of police (crime) Ravindra Yadav said.

Those arrested have been identified as Anil Kumar, Sudama Singh, Sharam Singh and Mukesh Sharma, the kingpin of this module. While Anil sent admission seekers to Mukesh, Sudama arranged the forged documents. Dharam prepared and finalized the fake papers, police said.

READ ALSO: Schools say no way to verify, not in wrong

"The gang charged Rs 3-10 lakh for each admission in prominent schools of Delhi, in collusion with the school administration," Yadav added.

Cops started investigating the racket a few months ago after receiving information about certain irregular admissions.

"A special team led by ACP K P S Malhotra was formed to develop this information and the database of students admitted under the EWS quota was obtained from the schools in question. The EWS certificates, on the basis of which admissions were sought, were also verified from SDM offices and several of them were found to be forged," additional commissioner (crime) Ashok Chand said.

It was also found that multiple admissions had taken place in different schools on the basis of the same certificates and names of the students later changed. A case under the appropriate sections of the law was registered at the crime branch.

READ ALSO: Principal kept in touch with main accused

During investigations, some of the parents revealed that several modules of touts were active across the city to facilitate fake admissions.

"During the process of data collection from school authorities and verification of EWS certificates from the concerned SDM offices, who too took very long to respond, these touts were alerted and went underground," Chand said. Minute scrutiny by the crime branch team yielded results, when a specific information was received regarding one agent, Anil Kumar.

READ ASLO: Future of 250 children hangs in the balance

"Immediately, the team swung into action and a trap was laid near Budh Vihar. Anil was apprehended by a team comprising inspector Kulbir Singh, SIs Ritesh and Neeraj among others. From him, documents of parents who had got their children admitted in Bal Bharti School, Pitampura, were recovered," Chand said.

Subsequenlty the other three were also arrested. Documents, computers, printers, rubber stamps of various government officials and software used for making fake documents were recovered from them.

The mastermind of the module, Mukesh Sharma, has disclosed that he had a masters in zoology and gave home tuitions. While being involved in the admission process of someone known to him, he learned about the EWS quota in schools. He then developed contacts in the school's administration and set up the racket, police said.

READ ALSO: Four arrested for fake nursery admissions in Delhi

