Burla police with arrested members of the fake certificate racket. Telegrpah picture

Sambalpur, Oct. 24: Burla police have arrested eight persons and busted a fake certificate racket.

Of the arrested persons, three had allegedly supplied fake certificates and five others managed to get admissions at various colleges and institutes on the basis of those documents.

The accused are Rabi Shankar Barik, 34 Manas Ranjan Mallick, 28 Ashok Dutta, 34 Laxmana Ganda, 19, Deba Ranjan Kumbhar, 21, Deepak Suna, 20, Sushant Nag, 19 and Dilip Kumbhar, 19.

Yesterday, the police also seized computers and printers, apart from four fake certificates from the accused’s possession.

Rabi Shankar, Manas Ranjan and Ashok were involved in making the fake certificates, while Laxmana, Deba Ranjan, Deepak, Sushant, and Dilip had procured those to get admissions to various institutions.

Laxmana had taken admission at ITI in Hirakud, while Deba Ranjan, Deepak, Sushant, and Dilip got admitted to the NAC College in Burla by submitting the fake certificates.

Earlier this year, Laxmana had applied for Plus Two admissions at the NAC College. However, when the college authorities verified his certificates, they found those to be the forged ones. In June, the authorities had lodged a complaint at Burla police station regarding this.

Subsequently, the police conducted a probe and arrested Laxmana, who spilled the beans. He told the police that he had procured the fake certificates from Deba Ranjan. Later, the police arrested Deba.

While interrogating Deba Ranjan, the cops came to know that Rabi Shankar, who runs a saloon at Goshala in the district, had given him the fake certificates. Later during interrogation, Debendra, too, told the police about the other accused in the incident.

“Rabi Shankar Barik is the prime accused. He used to lure the students with fake certificates. Manas Ranajan Mallick and Ashok Dutta were making the certificates in computer. Manas and Ashok were getting Rs 4,000 for making each fake certificate and they used to take around four hours to fake a certificate,” said inspector in charge of Burla police station Tofan Bag.

“While Manas Ranjan was making the fake certificates at his computer centre in Hirakud, Ashok Dutta used to do the same in his house,” said Bag. All the eight accused have been produced in court.

“They had been running the racket since 2003. They used to fake all categories of certificates. Earlier, they had provided fake certificates to several job seekers and students as well,” said a police officer.