Many shocking facts are coming to light in the probe of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the “bogus use” of scholarship provided by the Uttarakhand social welfare department to youths of the weaker section of the society.
The investigation reveals that a private institute hosted camps in villages and collected documents of students, by promising them completely free admission, and fictitiously used the certificates to show the youths as their students.
After attending the camp, the students never got a call from the institute. The SIT of Uttarakhand Police is investigating the scam. Police on Thursday arrested Manvendra Vijay Pathak, owner of a private ITI at Haridwar, for grabbing social welfare department’s scholarship fund by furnishing bogus documents. Through this model of operation, Pathak grabbed over Rs 21 lakh from 2014 to 2017. Interacting with the investigating team some 58 students, who were shown enrolled at Ranipur ITI (Hardwar), told the cops that they just attended the education camp hosted in their area and don’t know anything about their admission at the institute.
The organisers took some documents from the students. Many were even asked to provide a signed copy of the documents. After conducting the camp, the institute team disappeared and used the collected documents to show the youth as their students.
The role of bank employees too is doubtful. Bank accounts of the students were opened and in many cases the scholarship amount was directly transferred into the bank account of institute owner Manvendra Vijay Pathak. Police has registered a case against Pathak under sections 420, 409, 467, 468 and 471of the Indian Penal Court.
The SIT inquiry is giving nightmare to many private college owners. The institute top management expects the cops to act against them for their manipulations in the coming weeks.