Investigators yet to confirm accuracy of audio clips

LUCKNOW: The police team investigating the alleged paper leak of a law examination at the Lucknow University (LU), is yet to confirm accuracy of the voice in the audio clips, the telephonic conversation between Richa Mishra (a law student) and two professors of the law department. The audio clips had gone viral on December 4, exposing the irregularity.

“The entire investigation is based on the audio recordings, but the police teams have not been able to verify if these recording are genuine,” said Anurag Srivatsav, a professor of the law department, LU.

The matter was being investigated by a team of Hasanganj police station. Investigating officer (IO) of the case, Abhay Singh said, “We are attempting to verify the recordings, but it has not been done due to some unavoidable circumstances. The verification will be done within next fortnight.”

However, the law professor (Anurag Srivatsav), alleged that this was being done intentionally to delay the investigation.

On Wednesday, Richa Mishra was called to identify her voice in the audio clips but she refused to do so.

According to the investigating officer, the police team had now decided to move the court to seek permission for analysing the voice samples of all the accused.

So far, police have interviewed five teachers of the law department in connection with the paper leak case and four of them had refused to identify the voices in the audio clips.

“Only Ashok Kumar Sonkar identified his voice in the recordings, but he maintained that he was only informing the student about the syllabus, not about the questions that would come in the exam, said the IO.

Hours after the audio went viral, the LU VC had suspended two professors of the department and an FIR was lodged against Richa Mishra and Ashok Kumar Sonkar, assistant professor by the varsity administration.