Indian Student Fakes Father's Death For US Scholarship, Gets Exposed By Moderator

Aryan Anand, a former student of Lehigh University, orchestrated a notorious plan to secure a full scholarship at the prestigious institution in Pennsylvania, USA. His plan included fabricating financial records, and transcripts and even arranging a fake death certificate of his father. His tactics also involved creating a fake email address to look like his school principal. Shockingly, Anand publicly confessed about building his entire life and career on lies in a Reddit post. However, his revelation was exposed after the Reddit moderator conducted a background check and discovered he was a student of Lehigh University. As a result, the university’s police department initiated an investigation that concluded with Anand’s arrest on April 30. The Indian student was charged with forgery and theft of services.

According to ABC News, Northampton County Assistant DA Michael Weinert said, “The defendant only had one other university that he followed, which was Lehigh University. So, the moderator actually reached out to Lehigh to give them a heads up. It was difficult to really verify these things. I think that was great work by Lehigh and their police force. They were able to really dig deep and find all this really was false.”

Meanwhile, Lehigh University, in a statement, said, “Appreciates the report to its ethics hotline and the diligent investigation by the Lehigh University Police Department that led to Aryan Anand’s arrest.”

The investigation confirmed that Anand wrote the Reddit post. It was further revealed that his father is alive and residing in India. Anand was charged and his bail would have cost $25,000 (approximately Rs 20 Lakh). The student was then taken into custody by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Following the police investigation, Aryan Anand could have faced 10 to 20 years in prison, but due to an appeal made by university officials’, he was only dismissed from the institute and was deported to India as his punishment.

In an earlier incident, an Indian student in Canada sparked controversy when he shared a video of how he obtained free food from a local food bank. Mehul Prajapati, a data scientist, admitted in the now-deleted video that he saved money by using a food bank facility. Soon after his footage went viral, many criticised him and Prajapati was later terminated from his employment.

In a conversation with India Today, Mehul Prajapati clarified that he was fired from his job, due to racial bias against him at work. The student explained that he created the video with the intention of educating international students in Canada.