NEW DELHI (Sputnik) — The racket was unearthed after the police conducted mid-night raids at various hotels across the states of Maharashtra and Goa wherein a large number of aspirants were found in possession of the leaked question papers. They were either mugging up the answers or writing them down, according to police sources. More than 350 aspirants were rounded up for questioning by the police.
Army cancels recruitment exams at 6 centres in West India after alleged paper leak. #ITVideo pic.twitter.com/0hMgkEwLAn— India Today (@IndiaToday) February 26, 2017
21 persons have been arrested for facilitating distribution of the leaked questioned papers to the aspirants. The arrested suspects include an ex official of the Indian Army and a senior paramilitary officer. According to the police, the questions papers seized during the raids matched with those that were to be distributed during the actual examination.
The tests at Kamptee, Nagpur, Ahmednagar, Ahmedabad, Panaji and Kirkee were immediately called off after the racket was busted but in other centers, they were held as scheduled as it was too late by then to ascertain whether candidates in other states had access to the leaked questions.
Investigations revealed that many educational institutions offering coaching for Indian Army aspirants had access to question papers ahead of the examination and were selling them to aspirants willing to fish out a sum of about $300 US dollars.
According to the police, the tip-off came from a coaching class in Thane, which warned that another coaching class, run by a retired army officer, was taking $400 to $500 US dollars from each candidate and was planning to leak the question papers. The papers were leaked through a messaging application of smart phones. The police suspect that the papers were leaked either from the press they were printed or from distribution centers.
Sources told Sputnik that the Army Recruitment Board has halted all procedures pertaining to the recruitment drive and is conducted an enquiry to ascertain whether an insider having access to question papers ahead of the examination was involved in the racket. The result of the internal enquiry as well as further investigations by the police will dictate whether the tests conducted at all the 52 centers across the country ought to be called off, said the source.
This story first appeared on Sputnik & is reposted here with permission.