AYUSH admission scam in UP: STF arrests private hospital director in Mirzapur

Lucknow: In an ongoing investigation to nab medical personalities involved with the AYUSH admission scam, the UP Special Task Force (STF) has arrested the owner of a private medical college and hospital in Mirzapur in connection with the case.

So far, 14 people have been arrested in the matter since November last year when the anomalies came to fore.

Dr Ritu Garg, director of Santushti Ayurvedic Medical College in Mirzapur, was arrested from her Varanasi residence for allegedly facilitating admission of non-deserving candidates by forging the NEET merit list, in connivance with former director, ayurveda, S.N. Singh, and counselling in-charge, Umakant Yadav, said an STF official.

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Medical Dialogues team had earlier reported the admission scam where the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (UPSTF) charged the former director of Ayurveda Department, counselling in charge and 13 others for forging the NEET merit list.

In this regard, the STF had filed a charge sheet in a Lucknow local court. Former Ayurveda director SN Singh, counselling in charge Umakant Yadav, former senior assistant director, Ayurveda, Rajesh Singh, and former junior assistant in ayurveda directorate Kailash Chandra Bhaskar have been named in the charge sheet.

Apart from them Uptron Powertronics director Kuldeep Verma, AGM, Uptron, Prabodh Singh, directors of private companies Gaurav Gupta, Harshwardhan Tiwari, Saurabh Maurya, Indradev Mishra, Rupesh Ranjan Pandey, Vijay Yadav, along with managers of private firms Alok Trivedi, Dharmendra and Vijay have also been named by the STF.

All of them were charged under sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), and 471 (fraudulently using documents) of the IPC, and under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

In the Ayush scam case, anomalies were flagged by the Union ministry of Ayush in admission of undergraduate students to state's government and private ayurvedic, Unani and homeopathy colleges.

The probe revealed that 932 students were admitted without following the natural order of merit.

The official said over 100 non-deserving candidates were given admission in the private college of Dr Garg by forging the NEET merit list and many of the students had not even appeared in this combined medical entrance test.

Notably, the counselling was done in 2021 to select candidates against 7,338 seats in homeopathy, ayurveda and Unani colleges. A total of 6,797 seats were allotted, including seats in government and private colleges under Ayush.

In all, 982 allotments were identified as doubtful. These 982 names included nine who never even took the NEET exam, but got seats allotted in colleges.

All the 982 students of the 2021 batch were suspended by the directorate of ayurveda and debarred from taking the exam slated in June by the Ayush University in Gorakhpur.

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