Father arrested for forging documents of NEET candidate, search on for aspirant

CHENNAI: A denist, who allegedly forged his daughter's NEET scorecard to secure her an MBBS admission, was arrested on Friday. Police are broadening the scope of investigation by looking for involvement of other individuals or a syndicate in the issue.

The Periamet police said the accused and his daughter failed to appear despite repeated summons. A police officer told Express that the man, a dentist, was in the process of approaching courts seeking anticipatory bail when they arrested him. The whereabouts of the candidate is yet to be ascertained, the officer said. The dentist has been remanded in judicial custody.

The malpractice came to light, after the  Directorate of Medical Education filed a police complaint in early December against the duo, of Ramanathapuram district, who allegedly doctored NEET scorecard and provisional rank list to secure a medical seat.

In the complaint, the Additional Director of Medical Education and Secretary of the Selection Committee G Selvarajan alleged that the candidate had secured just 27 marks in NEET UG-2020. However, the scorecard uploaded by her showed 610 marks, a score secured by another candidate, Niharika*

In the provisional rank list too, she had replaced details of Niharika with that of hers.Police said that the documents of Niharika were duplicated and changes were made to them, but the original records available with officials remained intact. Equipped with the forged documents, the duo approached the medical counselling venue on November 30 though she was not invited for the same due to ineligibility.Based on the claims of the father-daughter duo, an internal probe detected the malpractice.

* name changed