Luo Caixia answers a phone call while holding a Tianjin-based newspaper that carries a lead story on page one headlined "Give my identity back to me". Wu Di

Luo Caixia shows a photo of Wang Jiajun, her high school classmate and alleged imposter, to reporters from China Youth Daily on May 4. Liu Wanyong (Inset): The registration from for Wang Jiajun in sitting for college entrance examination. File photo

The relaxed, friendly smile slowly dropped for Wang Zhengrong`s face. The game was up, he knew he had failed in his last chance to persuade Luo Caixia and her father not to expose him.

Luo, a 23-year-old student, showed no mercy as she sat face to face with the former township leader who stole her identity in order to enroll his daughter into college.

She agreed to meet Wang in March for food in Tianjin municipality, accompanied by her father and some friends, shortly after discovering her ID card number had been used to activate an online banking service in Guizhou province.

"As I sat there, I was not afraid, but my dad was nervous and never took his eyes off Wang (Zhengrong)," Luo told reporters from China Central Television this week. "It hurt me to see my dad`s hands trembling with fear."

She said that Wang, who ran a local government in Shaodong county, Hunan province, before becoming the political commissar of the public security bureau in the neighboring Longhui county, had offered to use his connections to find her a job during the meal in exchange for agreeing to illegally change the number on her ID card and keeping the theft a secret.

But she refused, and Wang was this month detained over allegations he forged official documents and intercepted an admission letter from Guizhou Normal University (GNU), where his daughter Wang Jiajun, a former classmate of Luo, was enrolled in 2004 to do a teaching degree.

The scandal sparked fury among China`s citizens over the social injustice, as well as the inequality of education opportunities after investigators revealed many officials had abused their power to help in the fraud.

The debate was also fueled yesterday by reports that a teacher called Liu Min, 46, helped a relative go to college in Shandong province by stealing his pupil Zhou Zhijing`s identity 10 years ago.

In early interviews, Luo was quoted in the media as saying: "Why did they pick me? Was it because I came from a family in the countryside?" But her self-pity has made way for anger and, on May 15, a court in Tianjin accepted a lawsuit she submitted that listed seven defendants, including the Wang family and education officials in Guizhou and Hunan provinces.

Luo is demanding 135,200 yuan ($20,000) in compensation for violations to her right of name and right to an education, and the emotional damage.

Lawyer Liu Jinghui, an expert in education law, said that although Luo`s financial losses were relatively small, "Wang`s alleged crime had also stolen a year of her life".

As former classmates at the No 1 Middle School in Shaodong county, both girls fell short of the 531-point pass mark set by the Hunan authorities for the national college entrance examination in 2004; Luo scoring 514, Wang Jiajun 335.

However, Wang Zhengrong is alleged to have manipulated GNU into offering Luo a place on condition she was pre-assigned a specific job upon graduation, and then intercepted the admission letter with the help of Tang Kunxiong, who worked at the university.

Luo, having no knowledge of the letter, did not question the fact she received no offers from the vocational schools she had applied to, and was forced to spend an extra year at high school.

She eventually enrolled at the college of history and culture at Tianjin Normal University in 2005.

By that time, Wang Jiajun was already a year into her studies at GNU, graduating with a bachelor`s degree in law last year when she also started her job in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province.

Until this March, Luo`s time in Tianjin had been as tranquil as her college`s Qiushui Lake. But life changed the day she went into a local branch of China Construction Bank to start an online account. Staff rejected her application as an account had already been opened in her name in Guizhou. Looking at the bank`s computers, she recognized her ID card - only this time it carried a picture of a different girl.

Remembering she had also been stopped from taking an exam for the national teaching certificate last year, she asked and discovered she was denied for the exact same reason, her ID number had already been registered on the system.

Luo feared her dreams of graduation were going up in smoke and reported the case to local police, who helped identify the girl on the fake ID card as Wang Jiajun.

And although the imposter`s father admitted being involved in the fraud, claiming he paid a middleman 50,000 yuan to clone Luo`s details, he also made a failed last-ditch bid to coerce the student into "handing over her identity".

On top of the damage done to Luo, the case has also led many netizens on China`s Internet portals to question the fairness of the country`s higher education admission system and the reputation of the authorities in Hunan.

"Would you waste time preparing for an examination if you thought someone was going to take your result to university and leave you to another year at high school?" said a Hunan netizen, while another in Beijing added: "These people (officials) could do whatever they want? It is as easy as grabbing a pen and paper to alter whatever documents they want."

Lawyer Liu explained that when facing State machines such as public security bureaus, where Wang Zhengrong worked, individuals could "easily be overwhelmed by the power".

Given the complexity of the scandal and the possible involvement of multiple government agencies, a joint team of officials from several authorities was deployed to Hunan and Guizhou to investigate this month.

Shortly after, and reportedly under tremendous pressure, Wang submitted an application to GNU to revoke his daughter`s degree and teaching certificate, which was duly granted by the Ministry of Education.

Meng Jianzhu, the minister of public security, got involved in the probe on May 10, with Wang Zhengrong and class advisor Zhang Wendi arrested within days.

The president of GNU, Huang Kailie, was quick to assure the public the crime had been an isolated incident.

Mao Shoulong, director of institutional analysis and public policy at Beijing-based Renmin University of China, agreed. "It is not a trend, nor does it have the potential to develop into one," he said. "Although, similar identity thefts for admission to college will be brought to light as the whole education and law enforcement system is under tightened supervision and stricter control."

However, a head teacher of a school in Anshan, Liaoning province, who asked to remain anonymous, said she has witnessed many abuses during her 35-year career.

"Favorable policies to help students enroll in college with scores below the pass mark are well intentioned, but those policies mostly favor only the relatives of people with power," she said. "They can take up special places, such as those for students given extra merit for sporting talent or pre-assigned jobs, from those who deserve them and distributed them among friends and relatives.

"In remote regions, the chance an official may abuse their power is extremely high compared to in big cities like Beijing or Shanghai, where citizens pay close attention to the recruiting process and have more channels to access information." Luo`s identity was stolen in 2004, 12 months before the Ministry of Education launched its "sunshine" campaign to clampdown on faults or abuses within the further education system.

But Professor Mao added that China`s university admittance process was still lagging behind the nation`s economic development.

"A healthy and sustainable education system should recruit students on merit and also rigorously ensure students are qualified to graduate," he said. "Only then will we see fewer cases of officials abusing their power to send children to good schools."

Meanwhile, Li Dongfang, from the China University of Political Science and Law, said more stringent supervision and monitoring should be in place to prevent injustices.

But what about Wang Jiajun? Many have now turned the spotlight on her following the detention of her father, while some netizens have urged for the public to show sympathy as she may too prove a victim of the fraud.

In 2004, she was just a normal 18-year-old girl. Now, she has been stripped of her hard-earned degree and certificates, and lost her job. China Daily has been unable to contact her since the case came to light.

"I feel desperate," she had written in a short message to Luo after her father`s final showdown in Tianjin. Her former classmate remained defiant, replying: "Excusing her parents means me giving up my future."

In a recent entry on Luo`s blog, she wrote her parents were now under 24-hour police protection over fears of a backlash following the acceptance of the lawsuit.

The road to recovery will take time, but Luo is optimistic. As background music for her blog, she has chosen a track that contains the lyrics: "Sunshine always comes in after storm."