Paper leak: WhatsApp chain busted, several students held

The Mumbai police have arrested 10 people, including students and prime accused Kalpesh Bagul (27) who is a computer technician of a college based in Kandivali, in connection with the Bachelor of Management Studies (BMS) student paper leak case registered with the Amboli police station on Thursday night.

The police said that Bagul somehow knew that his computer is linked to the only computer of the college from where Mumbai University (MU) question papers are downloaded. The police have seized his computer, a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) and his cell phones.

There is one computer per college which has access to MU question papers. One and a half hours before every exam, MU sends the password to each college to download the question papers, take printouts and distribute it among the students. Bagul used to secretly copy paste the question paper on his personal computer and then sell those question papers to middlemen, who sold the same to students for Rs 2,500 per paper.

Sources told the Free Press Journal that maximum question papers were leaked from a Juhu-based college and the students had created a group on WhatsApp where the question paper was circulated free-of-cost.

The police established a chain after detaining a female student from Andheri on Thursday. During questioning, the female student named her friend, who further revealed the name of another student.

The police have arrested her friend. Both are the students of the same Juhu college. “A female student of last year BMS was detained on Thursday and she had the question paper on her cell phone. After questioning, we got to know about the chain and nailed Bagul who is a computer technician in the college,” said the officer.

After the case was registered at Amboli, the police detained 11 people, including students, middlemen and the college computer technician.

Bagul told interrogators that he had ‘leaked nine papers of BMS and BAF between November 9 and 16’.

“Bagul also revealed that when he had leaked the paper for the first time, to evade arrest, he sold the papers only to middlemen and not to students,” said the officer privy to investigation. “A few students, who were questioned told investigators that they are not BMS students but they circulated the leaked question paper on the WhatsApp group for friends,” added the officer.

The 10 persons have been booked under relevant sections of Prevention of Malpractices in Maharashtra University Board and Other Examinations Act 1982 and IT Act. They will be produced before the Metropolitan Magistrate’s court in Andheri on Saturday.