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Indian student fakes his father’s death to get a US scholarship. Is arrested

An Indian student was arrested and deported after it was revealed that he had forged documents to receive a full scholarship. Aryan Anand, a student at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, boasted in a now-deleted Reddit post that he had “built his life and career on lies,” which was later reported by a platform moderator.

Anand made a startling confession about how he had falsified his Grade 10 final exam results and used fraudulent means to secure admission to a US college on a full scholarship.

These included fake certificates, essays and even the death certificate of his father, who is still alive. After successfully fraudulently gaining a place in college, the 19-year-old admitted that he lost interest in his studies, began drinking heavily and cheating on exams to keep his scholarship. He also faked internships to earn money.

Anand was arrested two months ago and faced up to 20 years in prison for forgery and theft of services, 6ABC reported. However, at the request of the university administration, he was expelled from the university and deported to India instead.

In a statement, Lehigh University said: “We appreciate the report and the thorough investigation that brought this case to light.”

Michael Weinert, Northampton County’s assistant district attorney, explained how the Reddit moderator linked Anand to Lehigh University. “The defendant was only going after one other university, which was Lehigh University. So the moderator contacted Lehigh to inform them,” Mr. Weinert said, according to 6ABC.

Mr Weinert praised Lehigh University’s thorough investigation, saying, “It was challenging to verify the facts, but Lehigh and their police did an excellent job of digging thoroughly and uncovering the truth.”

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