NEET impersonation: Doctor who’s the alleged link between students and broker arrested

Another arrest has been made in Tamil Nadu’s NEET impersonation scam. CB-CID sources told TNM that Dr Shafi, a private practitioner from Vaniyambadi, who could possibly be the link between the students and the broker, has now been arrested and brought into custody. According to reports, Dr Shafi’s son has absconded to Mauritius while the broker Rasheed is still on the run.

Sources told TNM that the doctor had got his son admitted in Chennai’s SRM Medical College by using an impersonator to write the NEET exam. Following this, he recommended the same method to Saravanan who runs a travel company, Davis who is a sub-contractor for laying internet cables, and to Madhavan, a medical shop owner.

Convinced by the plan, the fathers then met the broker Rasheed and got impersonators to write exams for their wards – Praveen, Rahul and Abhirami respectively. While Praveen was a student at SRM Medical College, Rahul was pursuing a medical degree at Sree Balaji Medical College and Abhirami at Sathya Sai Medical College. All three students and their fathers were arrested on Saturday.

Across Tamil Nadu, medical colleges have conducted verification of students based on their NEET documents but the possibility remains that the scam was executed across the country.

The scam was exposed earlier this month when 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. The impersonator allegedly attended classes for 20 days before Udit Surya replaced him, raising doubts. The dean of the college then conducted an internal probe reverifying the documents of first-year students following which Udit came under the scanner.

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.