UPPSC LT grade teacher exam 2018: Solvers’ gang busted, kingpin among 12 held
The exam, commonly known as the LT grade test, for the recruitment of 10,768 teachers for classes 6–10, was held at 1,760 centres in 39 districts of Uttar Pradesh later in the day without any hassle.
Uttar Pradesh authorities busted an exam solvers’ gang and arrested 12 people, including its kingpin, a suspended teacher, in Allahabad on Sunday ahead of the Assistant Teachers’ (trained graduate grade) recruitment exam 2018 which they were targeting.
The exam, commonly known as the LT grade test, for the recruitment of 10,768 teachers for classes 6–10, was held at 1,760 centres in 39 districts of Uttar Pradesh later in the day without any hassle.
Acting on a tip-off, the Allahabad unit of the Special Task Force (STF) arrested suspended teacher Om Sahai of Ghoorpur and his two aides Vinit Kumar and Jitendra Kumar of Kaushambi.
Following their confession, the team arrested six solvers, including a woman, and five candidates, Allahabad circle STF officer, Navendu Singh said.
The solvers were identified as Chintu Kumar, Bhola Kumari, Sanju Kumari, Kanhai Pandit, Pintu and Saurabh of Bihar. The candidates were Suresh Bhartiya of Kanpur, Ashok Kumar of Fatehpur, Ashok Yadav of Ghoorpur.
Solvers are those who are well versed in a subject and illegally appear in an examination in place of the bona fide candidate in return for money.
They were called from Bihar and each was to be paid ₹25,000. As per the deal, candidates were to pay ₹14 lakh to Om Sahai for clearing the examination. They had paid ₹2 lakh as advance to Sahai, Singh said.
Officials of the STF said the gang used to scan the photographs of the aspirants as well as the solvers and morph them. The morphed photograph was fixed on admit cards so that solvers could not be recognized during the examination and the chances of being caught were less, STF officials claimed.
Several mobile phones, PAN cards, admit cards, Aadhaar cards and ₹15,000 cash were recovered from the accused.
The STF teams carried out raids in several districts of the state in search of other members of the gang.
This is the first time a written exam was conducted for recruiting these teachers. Till now, the selections were made on the basis of academic merit.
There are a total of 10,768 posts on offer, including 5,364 posts for men’s branch and another 5,404 posts for women’s branch. A total of 7,63,317 candidates have applied for the exam.
In Allahabad, the exam was held at 144 centres and 65,798 candidates were registered for the exam here. Only women candidates vying to become teachers of Hindi subject took the exam here.
Earlier, the responsibility of conducting this recruitment was with the joint director (education) and was shifted to the additional director (secondary education) during the SP rule. However, after the BJP government took charge, it decided to carry out these recruitments through a written exam by Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC).
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