Bengaluru: Sleuths of Bengaluru CCB (Central Crime Branch), who busted a fake marks cards racket, have arrested two men and two women involved in the racket.

The Police have recovered around 1,100 academic records, including 700 marks cards of  SSLC, PUC, B.Com, BBA, B.Sc, Engineering and Ph.D degrees of over a dozen Universities and other Higher Educational Institutions across the country.

The racket was unearthed after Cops, acting on a complaint, raided three centres of Sri Venkateshwara Institute in Mahalakshmipuram, Marathahalli and Kodigehalli, late on Monday night. The Institute is said to run correspondence courses of different Universities of India.

Bengaluru Police Commissioner Pratap Reddy told reporters on Tuesday that they are yet to know the number of students who got marks cards and degree certificates fraudulently.

Pointing out that degree certificates, marks cards, migration certificates and even Ph.D degrees were being sold for a price, he said that for instance, the price for which a degree certificate was sold is found to be Rs. 1 lakh and for a Ph.D certificate Rs. 20 lakh.

Continuing, the Commissioner said that the four arrested, who have been identified as Kishore, Rajanna, Sharada and Shilpa, were the staff of the Institute.

During the raid, the Cops have seized 1,023 fake marks cards, 5 Ph.D theses, 74 seals belonging to different Universities, 8 cell phones, 5 hard disks and a couple of printers, he said adding that one Srinivas Reddy, who    had set up the Institute, has now gone absconding.

He further said that fake marks cards and academic certificates of Bilaspur’s Dr. C.V. Raman Institute, National Institute of Open Schooling, Andhra Pradesh, KSOU, Mysuru, Shillong’s William Carey University, West Bengal’s Swami Vivekananda Global University, Sikkim’s EIILM University, Haryana’s V.S. Prasanna Bharathi University, Gujarat’s Calorx Teachers University and Himachal Pradesh’s IEC University, etc.