J’khand arrests point to wider maths paper leak
Solved papers presold by trio: Police; board denies Hindi, pol science leaks
RANCHI/NEW DELHI: A Jharkhand student received the Class 10 mathematics question paper on WhatsApp a day before the exams, police said on Saturday, punching a hole in the theory advanced by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the central government that the leak was restricted to Delhi, the National Capital Region (NCR) and Haryana.
As investigators continued to probe a maze of WhatsApp messages and email trails, fresh protests erupted in Delhi, with parents and students mounting pressure on the CBSE over the leak of the Class 10 mathematics and Class 12 economics papers.
The superintendent of police in Jharkhand’s Chatra, Akhilesh B Verior, said the student received the handwritten question paper from another student in Bihar on March 27. The paper had the questions in the same sequence as they appeared in the official paper distributed the next day.
The student got the paper solved by a mathematics teacher identified as Amesh, who uses only his first name, working with a private coaching institute called Study Vision. Amesh and two owners of the institute – Satish Pandey and Pankaj Singh— sold the solved questions for ₹500 to ₹5,000. The trio has been arrested. At least nine students were detained and produced before the Juvenile Justice Board here, the police said.
“We have not been able to establish any Delhi link in the mathematics paper leak. The electronic surveillance, however, has established that two students from Bihar were involved in the transfer of the question paper to Jharkhand,” Verior said.
The paper leaks have triggered a political slugfest with the opposition accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre of incompetence.
On Saturday, a student from Kerala approached the Supreme Court, challenging the CBSE’s proposal to hold a Class 10 mathematics retest.
Jharkhand Police have arrested a Mathematics teacher of a coaching institute and two owners of the same institute in Chatra for allegedly selling the Class 10 CBSE maths paper to students for ₹500 to ₹5,000.
After solving the questions, the maths teacher, Amesh, and the two owners of the institute – Satish Pandey and Pankaj Singh — distributed the questions among other students.
Police said that at least nine students have been apprehended and produced before the Juvenile Justice Board.
Police have also seized handwritten documents in which Amesh, who goes by one name, had solved the questions.
“The question paper, sent through WhatsApp, was handwritten and had the questions in the same sequence as they appeared on the examination day,” Chatra superintendent of police Akhilesh B Verior said.
The student who received the question paper took the help of a mathematics teacher Amesh to solve it. Amesh works with a private coaching institute named Study Vision. “We have not been able to establish any Delhi link in the mathematics paper leak. The electronic surveillance, however, has established that two students from Bihar were involved in the transfer of the question papers to Jharkhand,” Verior said.