Staff of Jammu-based exam agency leaked paper: Police
28 persons, including 13 candidates who had got the answer key, have been arrested to date
KARNAL: Two employees associated with a Jammu-based examination agency, which had been given the contract to prepare the question papers for the written exams, had leaked the questions and answer key of the male constables’ recruitment exam conducted by the Haryana Staff Selection Commission (HSSC), claimed the Kaithal police.
Kaithal superintendent of police Lokender Singh said Rakesh Kumar, who is a manager with the printing press of the examination agency, had a soft copy of the exam in a pendrive on July 31 and another employee of the agency, Jitender Singh, managed to get access to the pen-drive and copied the questions and prepared a hard copy of questions and answer keys on August 2.
The claims were made by the police following the arrest of Rakesh of Jammu, Ajaz Amin of Srinagar, and Jitender of Doda district of Jammu. They were brought on a transit remand from Jammu on Monday and sent on 10-day police remand in Kaithal.
As per the investigation, Jitender had promised to give the questions to another accused Muzaffar Ahmad Khan of Ramban district of Jammu for Rs 6 lakh.
On August 3, Jitender allegedly gave the copy of questions to Muzaffar and he promised to give him the money after the exam. Then on August 5, Muzaffar had sold the questions and their answers to Afzal of Hazratbal in Srinagar for Rs 60 lakh with the help his friend Ajaz.
Another accused, Nazir Ahmad Khande, had arranged a meeting between Afzal and Raj Kumar of Khanda Kheri village of Hisar and given the answer key and questions to Raj Kumar at Delhi Airport on August 5, two days before the exam on August 7 and 8.
The SP claimed that Raj Kumar had paid Rs 5 lakh cash to Afzal and promised to pay the remaining amount on August 9 and 10. Raj Kumar also sold the questions and answer key to his friend Ved Prakash of Ritoli village of Rohtak for Rs 1 crore, and Narender of Hisar for Rs 1 crore on August 6. Narender paid Rs 20 lakh cash to Kuldeep and promised to pay the remaining amount after the exam, said the SP. On August 4, Narender had a meeting with another accused Ramesh at a hotel to arrange candidates to buy the answer key, he added.
He said that Narender, with the help of his friends Naveen Kumar and Nihal Singh of Hisar, sold the answer key to aspirants at Rs 10 lakh per candidate. Narender also sold them to Sonu and Sahil of Chidi village of Rohtak and they later gave them to Ramesh Kumar, who runs a private teaching academy in Kaithal.
The SP claimed that 28 people, including 13 candidates who had got the answer key, have been arrested so far and police teams were working to arrest the remaining accused in the case. The police have recovered Rs 18.87 lakh cash, 30 mobile phones, 4 cars, two blank cheques, laptop, computer and other documents from them.
Around eight lakh youths from the state have applied for the 5,500 posts of male constables advertised by the HSSC in December 2020.