Tomar's 'batchmates' fail to recognise him

Former law minister of Delhi Jitender Singh Tomar failed to trace his way to classrooms and labs of the college where he claims to have studied for two years for his graduation.

On Wednesday, a team from the Delhi Police was with Tomar at K S Saket PG College in Uttar Pradesh’s Faizabad district. He was asked to show the classrooms and labs of BSc students, but the 49-year-old went in the wrong direction. “He failed to recognise any lecturer and lecturers also did not recognise him,” said a police officer. Also, neither did Tomar nor his “batchmates” recognise each other.

Tomar was questioned for 12 hours in the PG College and Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Avadh University. His documents did not match with the university records. Tomar’s marks cards for BSc first and second year numbered 110711 and 31331 were of 1987 and 1988.

According to sources, the college officials told the cops that they had never said that Tomar had been a student at the college and termed the RTI answer, furnished to this effect by the college, as “fake”. Tomar's brother had claimed earlier that the college authorities had, in a reply to an RTI query, said that Tomar had studied at the college.
Sources also said the Delhi police took Tomar on a tour of Faizabad town on Wednesday evening and asked him to show them the places where he used to have tea and food, but the former Delhi minister behaved as if he was a complete stranger there.

Tomar was at the office of Lohia Avadh University from 11 am to 5:45 pm and at the PG College from 6 pm to 10:40 pm.

“We verified Tomar’s documents, assisted by university officials and teams led by the registrar and the controller of examinations,” the officer added.

On Thursday, police along with Tomar left for Tilka Manjhi Bhagalpur University in Bihar’s Bhagalpur district. They will also go to a college in Bundelkhand from where Tomar claims to have received a migration certificate which was used for admission in a law college at Bhagalpur in 1994.

According to police, Tomar wanted admission in LLB course at VNS Institute of Legal Studies in 1994. The institute, which was affiliated to Tilka Manjhi Bhagalpur University, was derecognised by the university in 1990. “We are investigating how Tomar managed to receive the LLB degree eight years after the college was derecognised,” the officer said.

On Thursday, a coaching centre operated by Tomar in outer Delhi’s Rohini was also raided by a police team. Police are now probing the possibility of Tomar’s association with a fake certificate racket under the garb of the Universal Coaching Institute.

“We raided the institute in the morning, but found it locked. Local enquiry revealed that it was shut since the day Tomar was formally placed under arrest,” the officer added. Inputs have been received about the possibility of a racket pertaining to fake certificates which he used to procure at varying prices for students who had flunked any of their final exams.