Six men were arrested on Friday on charges of procuring fake Ll.B marksheets. A search is on for three others.

“Those who have been arrested are Ashok Burman, 53, Dilip Acharya, 36, Ananda Das, 27, Partho Das, 25, Somenath Sarkar, 28, and Masood Karim, 36. Ananda used to practise at a Barrackpore court,” said Jawed Shamim, the deputy commissioner of police (detective department).

The six, remanded in police custody till February 8, were picked up from places in Howrah, and North and South 24-Parganas.

“Fake Ll.B marksheets, bearing the stamps of Magadh, Ranchi and Bhagalpur universities, were seized from them,” said a member of the detective department’s anti-fraud squad that carried out the raids.

Officers suspect that those who supplied fake marksheets to the six are part of a racket that came to light in 2004, after the arrest of a duo in central Calcutta.

A large number of fake marksheets bearing the seals of colleges and universities in Bihar were seized from the two.

The detective department took over the probe in 2005, following a plea by the state bar council. The sleuths came to know that the two were the kingpins of the racket, which also included officials of a few colleges and universities in Bihar and Jharkhand.

The two told the police that they had sold fake marksheets to several people in the city. “A team of the city police raided several places in Bihar and Jharkhand and arrested a few people involved in the racket. Criminal cases were filed against some employees of educational institutions in the two neighbouring states,” said an officer of the detective department.