HYDERABAD : Cops probing the fake certificate racket busted on Monday suspect that the degrees from Arni University in Himachal and a few other boards were forged with the help of varsity staff.

Rachkonda police now intends to approach these institutes to verify if any insider was involved even as it launched a manhunt for three absconding accused – Rahul Dikshit, the main supplier from Himachal, Rambhadra Rao, a small-time Telugu actor, and his son-in-law A Dinesh, who runs an education consultancy in Erragadda.

On Monday, LB Nagar SOT sleuths of Rachakonda had arrested G Rohit Varma (23), a BTech dropout and businessman from Kompally, T Renukesh (48), director of an education consultancy from Tanuku in Andhra Pradesh and G Sravan (29), a fake certificate agent from Yousufguda.

The racket was busted while Varma was trying to buy an engineering degree certificate of Arni university from the other two accused. Cops seized 39 fake degree certificates of Arni University in Himachal, Sarva Bharatiya Siksha Peeth and Intermediate certificates of Jharkhand State Open School.

Renukesh told police that Dikshit supplied the fake certificates which he sold to clients through Sravan, Rao (62) and Dinesh (37). The accused were selling each degree certificate for Rs 1 akh to Rs 1.5 lakh.

“Apart from Arni University degrees, Rao has also been selling certificates of a defunct university in Karnataka. Rao had small roles in Telugu movies and even directed a movie, ‘Wife’, about two decades ago. Since the past two years he has been in the fake certificates business. We have to write to Arni university and other education boards to see if the certificates we seized from the accused were issued from their institutions,” said a Rachakonda cop.