KANPUR, July 3 -- A joint team of the Kanpur Police's Pheelkhana station and the Special Operations Group (SOG) in Uttar Pradesh has busted a racket involved in manufacturing and selling fake educational certificates with links across 25 states, arresting two members and recovering forged marksheets, degrees and other documents from multiple universities.

The arrested accused have been identified as Amit Saxena and Gopal Gupta. Police said the alleged kingpin Akhilesh Shukla and his brother Nikhilesh Shukla are absconding. Akhilesh was released from jail in March this year after being arrested by the Gomti Nagar police in Lucknow in December 2025 in another fake marksheet case.

Addressing a press conference, police commissioner Raghubir...