ONLINE PAPER LEAK: SONEPAT COPS ARREST MASTERMIND

ROHTAK: A team of the special task force (STF) of Sonepat police on Saturday arrested the mastermind of a gang allegedly involved in helping the aspirants of competitive exams by running a computer hacking racket, from Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi.

The accused identified as Vikasdeep Dahiya, of Sonepat’s Sector 23, was planning to flee to Dubai. He will be produced before the court on Sunday.

Sonepat STF chief Satish Deswal said they have arrested eight persons so far.

“Three of the gang members were arrested from Sonepat and produced in court in Panipat on Thursday and sent to eight-day police remand, while three accused were arrested from Nagpur in Maharashtra. Today, we have arrested the mastermind from near IGI airport who was planning to flee the country,” he added.

Deswal said three accused are still at large and teams are conducting raids at Rohtak, Bahadurgarh, Delhi and nearby areas to nab them.

A senior police official, who is part of the investigation team, said the accused were active for the last couple of years and have helped many aspirants in clearing competitive exams of bank PO, SSC –CGL, UGC-NET, SSCCHSL, IIT-JEE and many other exams.

“We have recovered 1,200 computers, six laptops, 130 pendrives, hard-discs, 10 mobile phones, and blank checks. We will send all the recovered items to a lab in Panchkula for further investigation and interrogate the accused to ascertain the role of other accused. The accused performed the crime using softwares to hack computers and help the aspirants,” he added.

The official said the gang was busted after they helped a few youths in cracking the IIT-JEE written exam at a Sonepat centre, by hacking their computers with the help of softwares.

Police said the accused were active for the past couple of years and allegedly helped some aspirants in previous exams by leaking question papers or providing answer keys.