Calcutta, Jan. 8: Police from the city in a dawn raid yesterday arrested a Magadh University official in Gaya for his alleged involvement in a nationwide fake marksheet racket.

Nagendra Prasad Singh, a 58-year-old doctorate in botany and an officer of special duty (examinations) in Magadh University, was arrested from his Civil Line residence in Gaya. ?We have enough evidence to prove Singh?s direct involvement with the racket,? said Peeyush Pandey, deputy commissioner of police, detective department.

With Singh?s arrest, the number of accused arrested in the case has gone up to 15. ?Most of the accused, including the operatives active in the city, have been arrested. Our hunt is on to track down the rest of the persons,? said Pandey, who is heading the probe.

The police said Singh?s name came under the detective department?s scanner after the interrogation of other accused.

?We decided to conduct a raid in Bihar. A team of officers from the fraud section left for Gaya three days back,? a police official said.

The city police, however, did not inform their counterparts in Bihar, on a hunch that they might have links with the gang. ?Around 4 am on Friday, our men raided Singh?s house and arrested him?. We did not face any trouble because he is an old man,? the official added.

The sleuths informed the Gaya police immediately after arresting Singh.

?We produced him before the chief judicial magistrate in Gaya seeking permission to take Singh to Calcutta. As soon as the magistrate granted our plea, we left,? another official in the team said.

?He (Singh) used to maintain a fake tabulation register in Magadh University. The other members in the gang used to give him a list of clients and Singh would replace the genuine candidates in the register with the fake ones. As a result, identifying a fake marksheet used to be difficult,? one police officer said.

But the police first got the first whiff of Singh?s involvement after arresting Sunil Singh, the mastermind of the marksheet racket, from Patna three months back.

?We had to face a tough time before catching Sunil. Our team had to return empty handed because he fled two hours before our officers could catch up with him. But we arrested him from a lane near Patna University. During his interrogation, we came to know about the other members of gang and Singh,? said another official.

The police, however, are still looking for Humayun Kabir, another suspect in the city. ?Kabir resides in the Behala area. He has a number of agents in the city and districts, who rope in clients,? a police official said.