Ayush scam: UP Special Task Force arrests owner of private medical college

LUCKNOW: The UP Special Task Force (UP STF), which is carrying out investigation into the Ayush admission scam, on Wednesday arrested the owner of a private medical college and hospital in Mirzapur for facilitating admissions of undeserving candidates in connivance with the former director of Ayush department, and the counselling in charge. The STF has so far arrested 16 people in this connection.
According to STF officials, owner of Santushti Ayurvedic Medical College and Hospital, Ritu Garg, in connivance with former UP Ayush director SN Singh and counselling in charge Umakant Yadav, helped at least 70 undeserving candidates secure admission to institution.
Ritu Garg has been shifted to the Lucknow jail.
Sources in the STF said it surfaced during investigation that the accused persons manipulated the data they obtained from the Ayush directorate to facilitate admissions.
“Investigation is still on and the role of other officials of the Ayush department in the scam is being scrutinized,” additional superintendent of police, STF, VishalVikram Singh, said.
The STF has already filed the charge sheet against former Ayush director SN Singh, counselling in charge Umakant Yadav, former senior assistant director, Ayurveda, Rajesh Singh, and former junior assistant in Ayurveda Directorate, Kailash Chandra Bhaskar.
Others who have been named in the charge sheet include director and AGM of Uptron Powertronics, Kuldeep Verma and Prabodh Singh, besides directors andmanagers of private companies.
All of them have been charged under sections 420 (dishonesty), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471(fraudulently using documents) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). All of them have been arrested and sent to jail.
The scam had surfaced in November 2022 when the Union ministry of Ayush flagged anomalies in admission of undergraduate students to state government and private ayurvedic, Unani and homeopathy colleges.
The state government handed over the probe to UP STF. Later, the government also referred the case to the CBI.
So far, at least 12% of admissions in Ayush colleges of the state for the academic session 2021-22 have been found to be bogus. There are 7,338 seats in various government and private Ayush colleges in the state of which 891 have come under the scanner.