Three more detained in Bihar exam scam

PATNA: The police, late Saturday evening, picked up three more persons from Samastipur in north Bihar in connection with the age forgery by the deposed Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) intermediate (arts) topper Ganesh Kumar alias Ganesh Ram, who is now in jail.

Those picked up included Dev Kumari, principal of Sanjay Gandhi Vidyalay, Lakshminia in Samastipur, the school in which Ganesh had enrolled in Class 9 in 2013, on fake documents and taken the matriculation examination from Rosera. Also held by the police were Kumari’s husband, Ramkumar Choudhary, and their son, Gautam Kumar.

All three were being interrogated when reports last came in.

According to the police, they were taken into custody on the basis of the statement of the alleged mastermind of the forgery, Sanjay Kumar, who was picked up from a lodge in Musallahpur area in of central Patna on Saturday. Patna SSP Manu Maharaaj said the evidence against those picked up was being examined. “If corroborative evidence is found, they will be arrested,” he added.

Sanjay Gandhi Vidyalay, Lakshminia, was the school where Ganesh got enrolled for the second time by showing his date of birth as June 2, 1993, while his actual date of birth, when he took the matriculation exam for the first time, from Jharkhand, was November 7, 1975. He later got into Ramnandan Singh Jagdip Narayan Intermediate College (Samastipur), from where he topped in IA this year. In the face of continuing protests by students, the BSEB has geared up for scrutiny of answer books.

“We have formed a four-member committee under retired IAS officer Sudhir Srivastava for scrutiny of answer books. Full justice will be done to the meritorious students if any lapse in evaluation is detected,” he added.