BENGALURU: Police have launched a manhunt for a trio who allegedly cheated at least 21 MBBS seat aspirants on the pretext of arranging seats in medical colleges.
Commercial Street police have registered a cheating case based on a complaint filed by Rajashekara Basaiah Hiremath of Belagavi.
The accused are Tushar Bharadwaj, Rajbir Singh and Gaurav Sharma. They ran an office under the name of Mediwase Marketing Solution on Infantry Road and shut it at the beginning of this month after collecting Rs 3 crore from seat aspirants. All three have been missing since.
Hiremath told police his daughter had cleared her II PU exams and secured a rank of 262 in NEET. He received a text message asking him to dial a certain number for medical seats. He called the number and the receiver demanded Rs 65 lakh to get his daughter a seat at a prestigious medical college in Mangaluru. Hiremath was also asked to visit the receiver’s office in Bengaluru.
Hiremath came to the city on March 19 and met Bharadwaj and the others. They demanded Rs 10 lakh as advance. Hiremath paid Rs 5 lakh on March 21 and another Rs 5 lakh on March 29.
The gang called Hiremath again on March 31 and asked him to bring Rs 10 lakh more by April 4, assuring him that they would arrange a seat in a Bengaluru college itself. When Hiremath visited on April 4, the office was shut and around 20 other victims were standing outside. All of them decided to file a police complaint.
The trio is suspected to have cheated even more people, police said.
