A medical college in Kanpur is unaware of the whereabouts of eight of its students who are accused in the Vyapam scam and were taken into custody by the Madhya Pradesh police.
The Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Memorial (GSVM) Medical College administration is of the view that either these missing students are still locked inside jails or out on bail.
Their predicament stems from the fact that neither the students nor their guardians have given any information to the college.
"We aren't aware about these eight missing students from batches between 2010 and 2014. No information about these students has been submitted either by their guardians or MP police. They are absent from classes from past few months," The Times of India quoted a college official as saying.
The Special Task Force (STF), which is probing the Vyapam scam, had booked 54 GSVM Medical College students from batches between 2009 and 2014 for their alleged involvement in the scandal, according to the college.
The STF named the first student from the college in September 2014.
Of the 54 students, 22 returned to the college to complete their studies after signing a 'no objection certificate', six are still in jail and eight of them missing.
The rest (18 students) have completed their course as they belonged to the 2009 batch, but the college had handed over their details to STF for investigation.
The college authorities believe that some of these students could be inncocent and may have been falsely named by their peers.
Students scared
The college authorities said that the students who were jailed and later released on bail are scared after hearing about the deaths linked to the Vyapam scam in the recent days, the authorities said.
"The deaths of people involved in the Madhya Pradesh Vyavsayik Pariksha Mandal (VYAPAM) Medical Entrance Exam scam have caused stir among the countrymen and also left us shaken," a senior faculty member of GSVM Medical College said, according to the daily.