Vyapam Munnabhais coached in UP hubs

BHOPAL: Mushrooming coaching schools in Uttar Pradesh have become breeding ground of Munnabhais, who helped students crack pre-medical tests conducted by Vyapam, now a global catchword for a mammoth recruitment scam.
More than 90% solvers hail from coaching institutes from Lucknow, Allahabad and Kanpur. These solvers were imposters, who appeared for other students in pre-medical test, said Virendra Jain, additional SP special investigating, Gwalior.
"We did not know much about them as they were known with monikers like Pinku, Chiku, Chotoo among others. It took us one-and-half years to track Shibbu, one of the solvers. But majority of them were from UP coaching institutes," said Jain.
However, only 25% solvers have been arrested, while at least 100 are on the run, said Jain. Special task force had termed them "blind cases" with inter-state linkages and difficult to crack.
Of 400 arrests made by SIT, Gwalior, 40 were solvers while remaining were students, their parents and middlemen, who were the key link between students and solvers.
Agents from MP were in touch with those in UP, who hail from Kanpur, Azamgarh, Gorakhpur, Meerut and Faizabad. Solvers were bright students and lured with cash for turning imposters.
On Wednesday night, SIT Gwalior arrested Imran Ali, a 2013 batch student of a medical college in UP. He had allegedly impersonated for Gyan Singh Rawat, 2009 student of Gajraraja Medical college Gwalior.
Two scamsters, Gyanendra Tripathi and Nurul Hasan allegedly worked in tandem for Rawat in return for a kickback of Rs 3 lakh. Imran received Rs 50,000 for appearing in exam, an SIT official said.
A post-graduate student of Lucknow, Dr Manisha Sharma had appeared in PMT from Gwalior in 2008 for Sarita Sharma. SIT claimed she was paid Rs 2.5 lakh for appearing in the exam.
In 2009, she again appeared in PMT, this time for Jyoti Yadav. She was arrested from Lucknow. Her father works with UP electricity board in Jhansi. In 2009-10, more than 70% admissions were conducted fraudulently, an STF official said.