Hyderabad, January 10: The Crime Investigation Department on Monday arrested a two member gang which allegedly duped the students of nine engineering colleges by holding fake campus recruitment.
According to Additional DGP (CID) SV Ramana Murthy, the accused – Kothapalli Praveena and Sabbineni Seshu Kiran have cheated nearly 113 students to the tune of about Rs 15 lakh.
Being the employees of a firm called March-End Consultancy both the accused have visited the colleges, conducted Placement Consultancy program for the final year engineering students of B.V.C Engineering College, Odalarevu and collected Rs.500 from each student as processing fee.
Later, after conducting the video graphic interviews all the students were issued fake placement orders on behalf of Mphasis, IBM and Elcon Companies. They collected nearly Rs 2,13,000 in form of cheques and around Rs 12,00,000 in cash.
Further investigations revealed that the duo besides BVC Engineering College, Odalarevu (v), Allavaram (M), have cheated other engineering colleges. They include Rajeev Gandhi Institute of Management and Science, V.S.Lakshmi Women’s Colleges, Aditya Engineering College and Pharmacy, KIET Engineering College, Regency Institute of Technology, Pragathi Engineering College, Sashi Engineering College and Nikitha Engineering College.
The CID says that the duo cheated the DRDA of East Godavari District, who held a “Finishing School” for 90 economically backward un-employees by holding mock interview classes and promising placement to these 90 candidates.
March-End Consultancy’s promoter Nori Raghunandan and his other employees/accomplices are at large and efforts are on to apprehend them, CID said.
Meanwhile, the CID is also focusing its investigation to find out the complicity or culpable negligence of the managements of the colleges whose students could be cheated on the lure of placement.
The CID has called upon the Managements of Professional Colleges/Institutes to thoroughly verify the credentials of such Consultants with the Employing Firms and also not to allow any approaches through ‘back-door’ entry and disallow any consultant who insists on processing fee or payment of one-month salary, either before or after the selection, by the candidates to the so-called Consultants/Recruiters/Placement Agencies.
–Agencies