A 28-year-old woman and two men in their 30s were arrested early on Wednesday for allegedly duping several medical aspirants with promises of getting them seats in medical colleges in India and Bangladesh against payment.
Subhojit Roy, a resident of New Town, Shaiket Chowdhury from Bishnupur in Joka, and Bottola resident Rimpa Ghosh were arrested by a team from the Bidhannagar East Police station, a senior officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said.
According to the officer, Roy had taken a portion of a house in CG Block in Salt Lake on rent where he was operating a call centre. The trio would place calls to people across the country posing as education consultants.
The cops raided the house after receiving a specific complaint and arrested the three while they were placing calls, the officer said.
An investigating officer said the three would target young men and women who wanted to study medicine and would offer them admission to medical colleges for a consultation fee.
“They would place calls all over the country and seek out those who wanted to pursue MBBS courses. Once their victims were convinced of their authenticity, the trio would offer them seats in top colleges in India and Bangladesh against payment,” said the officer.
Once the payment is done the trio would stop communicating with the victims, the officer said.
In several cases, to convince the medical aspirants and their family members, the trio would call them over to their CG Block office and present them with “brochures” with the names of several medical colleges printed on them.
“They would tell the aspirants as well as their family members that they could get seats booked in the institutes through various quotas. They would charge anything between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 20 lakh from their victims,” the officer added.
The three were produced before a Salt Lake court on Wednesday afternoon. The court sent Roy to police remand for four days. Ghosh and Chowdhury were sent to jail custody for 14 days.