KOLKATA: The West Bengal CID 's special investigation team (SIT) probing the fake doctor case has claimed that an illegal medical board had been operating from Barasat for three decades and had duped thousands of medical students from across India by offering fake degrees.CID officials said they had recovered around 560 fake mark sheets of at least seven Indian and other Asian universities to which the council never had any affiliation. The main accused, the owner of the flat from where the board operated, is believed to have fled to Chennai. Tamil Nadu Police has been informed about this issue."We found during our initial search that even foreign students from Asia would attend coaching classes at Barasat. Huge capitation fee was charged for each degree — the bigger the university, the bigger the fee. We will continue our search for the next two days," a DSP-level official told TOI.Sources said the nonexistent 'UN Peace University' was involved with the gang. "The real university is named University Of Peace," said an officer. DIG (operations) Nishant Pervez said they may lodge a separate FIR. So far, CID has remained silent on who the kingpins of the racket are, the huge profits the gang members cornered and the support they received in running the gang from certain doctors and paramedics in the state. "We will soon begin gathering the details once we complete the recoveries," said an officer, adding that one of the three fake doctors — Kusinath Haldar — had led them to the fake board.The entity — Alternative Medical Council Calcutta — was on the list of 23 fake boards against which CID had mulled action with help from other state police forces. The name of at least one fake doctor arrested by CID was on their list for involvement in a medical college admission racket."Each gang is related in some way with the other — the fake doctors, boards and admissions — and owe their genesis to the small number of government seats and craving among students to become trained doctors. The SIT has been formed keeping these issues in mind," said a source.

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