Ex-TV journo held in medical seat racket

CHENNAI: Convent-educated, VISCOM graduate and a former television journalist, Rithanya alias Kanchana (26) is now behind bars for allegedly cheating a Meghalaya youth of Rs 27 lakh after promising to secure him a seat in a medical college at Kancheepuram using “influence and connections”.Skeletons are slowly tumbling out of the young woman’s closet after Rocky Wells Sutna of Meghalaya filed a complaint with the city crime branch on June 16, alleging that he approached Global Services Agency run by Rithanya on Chakrapani Street in Kodambakkam, seeking a medical seat for his son Marjan Wao Chyrmang.“She had contacts with admission touts, who directed the aspirants and their parents to her office,” CCB inspector G S Premanand told Express. “To them, she pretended to be influential and with connections to secure seats under the MP quota and so on,” he said.Sutna paid Rs 27 lakh to the con-woman for a seat for his son at Meenakshi Medical College, the inspector said. He grew suspicious when weeks passed and the promised seat did not materialise. In order to buy time, Ritanya held out false assurances, executed on stamp papers, that she would return his money. She also gave him cheques.“That appears to be her modus operandi. She would repay some portion of the cash and the victims, eager to avoid lengthy legal procedures, would go away,” the police officer saidThe CCB registered a complaint and a special team launched a search for the woman, who absconded after scenting trouble. On a tip-off, the sleuths nabbed her at Egmore on Sunday.During interrogation, it came to light that she studied in a popular T Nagar convent school. A visual communication graduate from a deemed university here, she worked with a leading English TV channel in New Delhi for six months. “She entered the racket to make easy money,” the CCB sleuth said.She had been arrested in January on a similar complaint of a Rs 19 lakh fraud. The police suspect that there could be many more victims like Sutna, who had been lured by the promise of  a medical seat and cheated to the tune of several lakhs.