The Delhi police is probing the possibility of an organised racket behind the alleged fake degrees of AAP leader Jitender Singh Tomar who was on Wednesday taken to Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh for gathering more evidence in the case.
"Our team has just reached Faizabad. There our investigating officer will take help of Mr Tomar in gathering evidence from there and whatever on-spot verification will be needed will be done," Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi told media persons on Wednesday.
Tomar, who quit as Delhi law minister after his arrest on Tuesday, claims to have done his BSc from RMLAvadhUniversity, Faizabad. The police has taken him there for an on the spot verification and questioning, sources said.
The police may also take him to Munger in Bihar and repeat the exercise there. Tomar had claimed to have completed his LLB degree from VNSL Studies, a law college affiliated to Tilak Manjhi Bhagalpur University of Bihar.
Investigators are now trying to ascertain as to who made these alleged forged documents and whether an organised gang is behind it.
"Whether he made them himself or did he procure it from somewhere. If they were procured from somewhere, it will be important to zero down on the person who provided him these documents and if there is a racket, then who else did they provide such documents," he said.
Tomar, 49, the member of Legislative Assembly from Trinagar and a first-time minister, was remanded in four-day police custody by a Delhi court on Tuesday.
He was escorted by an assistant commissioner of police-level officer along with seven other personnel to Faizabad.
More arrests are expected in this connection from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the sources added.
The police chief said that their experience says that if a person makes such fraudulent documents, he doesn't do it for single use and there are rackets for providing such degrees.
"So to maintain the educational standards of the country, we want to arrest the racketeer and interrogate him thoroughly and track all those to whom he might have provided similar documents and bring all of them to book. We want to catch everybody, whether he is a government official or a private person," said Bassi.
He also maintained that police had conducted a through probe into the case after they received a complaint from Delhi Bar Council on May 11 and Tomar was arrested only after they had concrete evidence against him.
On Tuesday, the police had claimed that a nearly month-long investigation found that Tomar not only submitted fake science graduation degree and law mark sheets to register with the Bar Council of Delhi but forged a migration certificate also.
Once police received the complaint, a preliminary enquiry, as per the directives of the Supreme Court, was launched and two teams were sent to verify the documents attached with the complaint to RMLAvadhUniversity, Faizabad and TilakManjhiBhagalpurUniversity in Bihar, police said.
"In the record of K S Saket PG College, Ayodhya from where the alleged B.Sc degree and mark-sheets were issued in the name of Jitender Singh Tomar, no such student was found in the college admission register while roll numbers mentioned in the documents were not found in the university record," said Delhi police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat.
When the police team contacted the Controller of Examination of RML Avadh University, he reported that no B.Sc degree and mark-sheets in the name of Jitender Singh Tomar have been issued by the University as per their record.
"We then checked the alleged provisional certificate of LLB issued by TilakManjhiBhagalpurUniversity. A report from the university has termed the degree fake. The roll number mentioned in the provisional certificate of LLB was found to be allotted to another student, Sanjay Kumar Chaudhary, from a different stream issued in 1999," Bhagat said.
The facsimile signatures of Rajender Prasad Singh as the Controller of Examination, on the marks sheet of LLB (Part III) and Provisional Degree were found to be forged, he added.
Interestingly, VNSL Studies, Munger, Law College, admission record, it has been shown that Tomar has obtained the B.Sc degree from RML Avadh University, whereas in the record of Tilak Manjhi Bhagalpur University, he has shown to have been migrated from Bundelkhand University.
Image: Arrested Delhi Law Minister Jitendra Singh Tomar being taken to Saket Court in New Delhi in connection with alleged fake degree case. Photograph: PTI Photo/TV GRAB
