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UP STF busts inter-state exam racket, arrests five
The Special Task Force (STF) of the UP Police busted an inter-state competitive examination racket and arrested five people, including three state government employees,
The Special Task Force (STF) of the UP Police busted an inter-state competitive examination racket and arrested five people, including three state government employees, from a park in Gomti Nagar in the state capital late on Thursday evening, a police officer said on Friday.
The suspects were arrested when they were exchanging cash and documents, the officer said, adding the team recovered Rs 6.5 million from them.
Those arrested were identified as Vinod Kumar and Shadan Khan of Lucknow, Pankaj Gupta of Kanpur, Kamal Kishor Yadav of Prayagraj and Ajit Kumar of Jaunpur, the officer said. STF’s field team led by inspector KC Rai and Atul Kumar Singh raided the spot after a tip-off.
“We received information that people involved in examination fraud were meeting at Gate 2 of Janeshwar Mishra Park. When we reached there, five people were exchanging some bags and packets,” the police officer said
The STF team also recovered two handwritten lists of applicants, 18 result sheets of the Rajasthan Staff Selection Commission, 14 entry slips of the UP Subordinate Selection Commission examination, some other answer sheets and mark sheets. Police also secured 68 screenshots of WhatsApp chats among the suspects.
During the interrogation, Vinod Kumar revealed he was working with a private company as a data entry operator, the police officer claimed.
The company was allotted the tender for examination data entry, as well as preparation of the result, from time to time, the officer said.
“Data entry and result preparation work of the UP State Subordinate Selection Commission’s competitive examinations were outsourced to the company,” the officer said.
The Rajasthan Subordinate and Ministerial Services Selection Board outsourced optical mark reader scanning and result preparation work to the same firm for examinations for the post of female supervisor, agriculture observer, and lab assistants.
Vinod and Shadan got their friend Pankaj Gupta, a government teacher, to lure 18 applicants who were asked to leave their OMR sheets blank, the official said. When the result was declared, all of them were selected, the official said.
The officer revealed Rs 500,000 was collected from each applicant and Pankaj, along with another teacher Ajit Kumar and an employee of the state sales tax department Kamal Kishor Yadav had come to handover the money to Shadan and Vinod in Lucknow on Thursday.
The police registered a case under Sections 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 470 (forging documents), 419 (punishment for cheating by impersonation), 420 (fraud) and 34 (crime committed by several people with common contention) of the Indian Penal Code, the officer said.
