Four held for forging degree certificates

Hyderabad: The west zone task force busted a fake educational certificates racket and arrested a gang of four on Saturday. About 128 fake certificates of SSC, Intermediate, degree and engineering of various universities like Osmania, JNTU and Andhra University were seized from them.

The accused were identified as Mohd Kaleemuddin, 33, a driver and resident of Quba Colony in Chandrayangutta, Mohd Ismail alias Yousuf, 41, a realtor and resident of Saraswathinagar, Mir Abrar Ali, 40, a realtor and resident of Akber Bagh, Malakpet and S. Shiva Charan, 32, owner of Eeshana Overseas Consul-tants and a resident of Narayanaguda.

Task force additional DCP B. Limba Reddy said that Mohd Kaleemuddin was earlier working in a screen printing shop. While working there he learnt to prepare fake educational certificates and later started forging the certificates of Osmania, JNTU, Andhra University, SSC and BIE. He hands them over to his buddies who sell them. Ismail, Abrar and Shiva collect details of candidates and inform Kaleemuddin.

“They charge about Rs 10,000 for SSC, Rs 15,000 for Intermediate, Rs 20,000 for degree and Rs 25,000 for engineering certificates. Later, they share the amount. They have also issued fake birth certificates, notaries and attestations. So far they have sold about 1,000 fake educational certificates. Investi-gation is on to trace the beneficiaries,” Mr Reddy said.

In 2003, 2006 and 2007 Kaleemuddin was arrested by the police in similar cases. Mohd Ismail was also arrested by the police in similar cases in 2003 and 2006.

About 128 fake educational certificates of SSC, Intermediate, degree and engineering of various universities, a laptop, computer, stamps, cell phones and other material were seized.