1,200 students cheated for taking up internship with IIT-Madras: officials
Techizer India, a UP based company, situated inside IIT Research Park, offered a paid summer internship
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2014-06-11 14:30 GMT
Chennai: Around 1,200 aspiring students from across the country landed at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) on Tuesday found that they were conned for the summer internship programme. The students later found that the amount they had paid for internship in the prestigious institute was in no way connected to IIT Madras.
Following which angry students staged a protest near a local police station and filed a police complaint against three persons who claimed to be IIT alumnus. The cops arrested three accused.
Techizer India, a Uttar Pradesh based company, situated inside IIT-M Research Park, offered a paid summer internship in courses like Android Application Development, Ethical Hacking & Information Security, Cyber Forensic, Robotics and Embedded and PHP,
The programme was advertised as being conducted at the IIT-Madras Research Park summer internship programme and applicants were told that classes would be handled by IIT professors. For which the students were charged between '2,000 and '3,000 for the ‘course’, and the students were asked to pay online.
There was nothing amiss on Monday, when the first batch of more than 500 students commenced their internship. “The first class went off without any hitch. The class was held at the IIT-Research Park as we were informed. But when the students started questioning the certification, we were told that it would be given by Techizer (the organiser) and not by IIT-Madras,” Veera Sai Raja one of the students reportedly said from Hyderabad.
When the students arrived on Tuesday morning, a notice was put up by IIT-RP authorities which said the programme has been shifted to another venue and the institute was not associated with the company. Guards at the research park refused to let the students in, and Amrendar Pal, the person who claimed to be the head of the firm, was unavailable on phone.
The agitated students began protesting outside the research park, and later complained to the police about the incident.