CAUGHT IN THE ACT.

Woman docs held in medical exam racket

WOMEN crooks have allegedly crashed through the ceiling to put their stamp on another male preserve -- impersonation of candidates at medical examinations.

For the first time, the Delhi Police have arrested two women, one of whom had hired the other for lakhs of rupees to appear in a medical examination.

These women, both doctors, are among four arrested as the police began investigations into a nationwide racket of hiring impersonators for the medical examinations.

The scam began unravelling when the police were called to the National Board of Examinations's ( NBE) exam centre in Janakpuri in the Capital on September 27.

The NBE was conducting the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination ( FMGE), mandatory for all doctors who have obtained their medical degrees from foreign universities and wish to practise in India at the centre.

" We got a call from the examination centre asking us to come over. When we reached, two doctors had been held," a police officer said.

It transpired that an invigilator had found something amiss on one of the appearing candidates

and called the NBE's roving inspectors into the exam hall.

A background check revealed that the candidate appearing in the exam was not Vijay Kumar, who had recently obtained his medical degree from a Russian medical college, but one Dr Kafeel Ahmed Khan, a Lucknow- based doctor.

" We immediately detained him.

Suspecting more such cases, we decided on a thorough check on all candidates, specially the males," the officer said.

While the police went around checking each candidate, they stumbled upon a female doctor, Sangeeta, who was appearing on behalf of a doctor who had got her degree from an eastern European country. Sangeeta, who is in her late twenties and also practices in Lucknow, was detained and later arrested.

" Kafeel and Sangeeta were paid anything between Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 3 lakh to impersonate in the exam," the officer added.

The police then went looking for the doctors in whose name Kafeel and Sangeeta were appearing. The trail led to the arrest of Vijay and a female doctor, whose name has been withheld.

" Our special police teams under inspectors Rakesh Ahuja and Janakpuri station house officer Ramesh Kumar are investigating further. We expect to arrest more doctors, including female impersonators. But the investigations could take

some time given the scale of the case," DCP ( West) Sharad Aggarwal said.

Vijay and the female doctor arrested have told the police that they weren't confident of clearing the FMGE exam on their own.

Hiring Kafeel and Sangeeta came with a " guarantee" of clearing the exam in the first attempt, they said.

" Sangeeta broke down after realising the soup she was in.

She has given trails and clues on how contact is established between touts, doctors looking for impersonators and the ones who impersonate," a police officer said.

A source said the All India Institute of Medical Sciences ( AIIMS) library in the Capital often serves as the recruiting ground for touts scouting for doctors looking for impersonators.

" We have been told that one of the initial meetings between the touts offering impersonation services and the candidates nabbed in the FMGE case took place at the AIIMS library," the source revealed.

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