Couple cheat 113 engineering students

HYDERABAD: A couple, who cheated students of nine engineering colleges promising them jobs in reputed firms like IBM, were arrested by the Rajahmundry police on Tuesday.The couple, S Seshu Kiran and K Praveena, are employees of March-End Consultancy and posed themselves as authorised consultants for campus recruitment for IBM and collected huge amounts of money from the students.“They conducted placement interviews for final-year students at BVC Engineering College at Odalarevu village in Allavaram mandal and collected Rs 500 each from them as processing fee. After conducting videographic interviews, the students were issued fake placement orders which were downloaded from internet (e-copies) on behalf of IBM, Mphasis and Elcon companies,'' additional DGP (CID) SV Ramana Murthy said.The duo cheated 113 students and collected nearly Rs 2.13 lakh by cheques and Rs 12 lakh in cash, the CID official said.During the course of investigation, CID sleuths found that the couple had not only cheated the students of eight other colleges including Rajeev Gandhi Institute of Management and Science, Kakinada; VS Lakshmi Women’s College, Kakinada; Aditya Engineering College and Pharmacy, Kakinada; KIET Engineering College, Kakinada; Regency Institute of Technology, Yanam; Pragathi Engineering College, Kakinada; Sashi Engineering College, Tadepalligudem; and Nikitha Engineering College, Kandukur, Ranga Reddy district.The couple also cheated the DRDA of East Godavari district which held a programme,  `Finishing School', for 90 economically-backward unemployed youths by conducting mock interview classes and promising them placements.Police said Nori Raghunandam, the promoter of March-End Consultancy and his other employees or accomplices, are at large and a hunt has been launched to nab them.The investigating agency is also trying to find out the complicity or negligence of the managements of the colleges whose students were cheated in the name of placements. Police advise managements of professional colleges to verify the credentials of consultants with the employing firms they claim to represent.