Bhubaneswar, July 18: Police today arrested two persons for allegedly taking money to provide seats in private engineering colleges of the city.

The arrested conmen are Mihir Kumar Chakraborty, 35, and Rashmi Ranjan Patra, 32, who had taken Rs 1.05 lakh from an aspirant of Jharkhand.

Mihir, a native of Jharkhand, used to run a consultancy called Balaji Educational Consultancy in Ranchi and had been collecting money from engineering aspirants of Bihar and Jharkhand. The police said Mihir had been running his business for the past 10 years.

Mihir’s accomplice Patra was operating in the state to motivate students seeking admission in city-based engineering colleges. The police said Patra was a BCom graduate and Mihir an arts graduate.

The matter came into light when one Atul Kumar, who had given the cash to Mihir for admission, realised that he had been cheated and lodged a police complaint. “Mihir went to a city-based engineering college and asked Atul to wait outside. But after a few moments, Mihir said no seats were available in the city and he would arrange a seat in Sambalpur. When Atul sought his money back, Mihir started an argument and left the place,” said a senior police official.

Following the verbal argument, Atul lodged a police complaint and police arrested Mihir and Patra from the city.

“We have also seized the cash from them,” said the police officer.

Two days ago, the police arrested one student allegedly for forging his Plus Two mark sheet to gain admission to an engineering college after the OJEE authorities had lodged a police complaint.

The police said many brokers, especially those from neighbouring states such as Jharkhand and Bihar, were involved in the racket. “As a number of seats under the OJEE are lying vacant, the brokers have become active in the city. We are investigating involvement of officials of the engineering colleges in the incident,” said a police officer.

The final list, published yesterday by the OJEE committee, revealed that about 18,500 candidates had been allotted seats in various engineering colleges, leaving behind over 26,500 vacant seats across the state.