Suspended ERA secy arrested, another accused held in Aligarh
38 ARRESTED IN FOUR DAYS, INVOLVEMENT OF NINE OTHER ACCUSED SURFACES IN THE CASE
LUCKNOW : In a major crackdown in UP Teachers’ Eligibility Test-2021 (UPTET) question paper leak case, the Special Task Force (STF) on Wednesday arrested the suspended secretary of Prayagraj-headquartered Exam Regulatory Authority (ERA), UP, Sanjay Kumar Upadhyay, said Amitabh Yash, ADG, STF.
Another key accused Gaurav Kumar was also arrested from Aligarh on Tuesday night. His arrest helped ascertaining identities of seven more accused in the paper leak nexus, said UP police STF officials. In the past four days, 38 people had been arrested in connection with the paper leak case while the involvement of at least nine other accused, who were still at large, surfaced in the matter, they said.
The ADG said Upadhyay was arrested after the hours-long interrogation of Rai Anoop Prasad, director of the Delhibased firm assigned the job of printing TET question papers, who was arrested from UP’s Gautam Buddh Nagar on Tuesday over his alleged involvement in the case.
Another STF official said that Prasad had revealed that Upadhyay had issued a work order to his printing firm, RSM Finserv Ltd, Badarpur, New Delhi, on October 26 for printing the question papers. He said the duo was found to have violated the secrecy protocol while printing the question papers, following which the papers were leaked and the exam was cancelled.
The UP government had on Tuesday suspended Upadhyay with immediate effect after he was allegedly found negligent in ensuring smooth, fair and copying-free conduct of UPTET-2021, said a senior government official.
UPTET is a state-level exam conducted once a year to enable candidates to gain eligibility to teach primary classes (1to 5) and upper primary classes (6 to 8) in schools of the UP government. The responsibility of conducting the exam lies with the ERA.
During interrogation, Gaurav Kumar of Tappal in Aligarh revealed that he arranged question papers with the help of his