Kalyani police have busted an inter-state racket that duped aspirants of several lakhs of rupees after promising them admission to the MBBS course at College of Medicine & JNM Hospital in Nadia's Kalyani.

Acting on two specific complaints lodged by the parents of two duped students, the police on Thursday night laid a trap and arrested Sanjib Jha (alias Anupam), Manali Das, and Ratna Das, who were allegedly operating the fake MBBS admission racket.

Sanjib is a resident of Bihar, while the two women live in Calcutta. The trio were produced in the additional chief judicial magistrate’s court in Kalyani and sent to 10 days' police custody. Another suspected person involved in the racket managed to flee, a police source said.

Sleuths said the fraudsters targeted students having no rank and assured them admission under a special quota by preparing admission documents for them, which were eventually found to be fake.

On September 19, while admitting the MBBS aspirants, the College of Medicine & JNM Hospital authorities in Kalyani found at least two of the candidates had submitted fake admission offer letters. One of the candidates was from Asansol and the other from Bongaon.

Principal of College of Medicine & JNM Hospital, Kalyani, Avijit Mukherjee said: “During the scrutiny of the documents, our nodal officer found that the admission offer letters and payment acknowledgment receipts of the two students to be fake. Moreover, none of the students had achieved any rank in the eligibility test."

Ashish Sharma, the father of one duped student and a complainant, said: “My daughter passed the eligibility test without any rank. She was contacted by a person over the phone and offered admission under a special quota. He sought Rs six lakh for a seat. We met him once in Kalyani when he convinced us of a confirmed seat in the college. So, I transferred Rs 6 lakh to a bank account after which the person who introduced himself as Anupam handed over to us an admission offer letter, apparently issued by the CoM&JNM, Kalyani. But the letter was found to be fake.”

“We then tried to contact Anupam but his phone was found switched off. It then became clear that we have been duped,” said Sharma, who works as an accounts officer with a private firm in Asansol.

A senior officer of Ranaghat police district said: “After we received the complaints, we began to probe and found that the racket was operating in Kalyani. It appears to be an inter-state racket, which has also duped many other students.”