Open school exam fraud busted, 7 held

A government school teacher and the owner of a private coaching institute were among seven people arrested on Tuesday for facilitating fraud in the higher secondary examination of the National Open School (NOS).

A government school teacher and the owner of a private coaching institute were among seven people arrested on Tuesday for facilitating fraud in the higher secondary examination of the National Open School (NOS).

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The racket involved facilitating impersonators to write the exam in place of original candidates who sought their services for clearing the exam. The police also arrested five fake candidates writing exams, red-handed on April 20 from the examination centre in a secondary school at Sadatpur Extension, near Karawal Nagar.

The racket was being run by Shyam Sharma, manager of the school, who is on the run.

The arrested impersonators, identified as Jitender Kumar, 18, Amit Chauhan, 23, Satish Kumar, 27, Sushma, 30 and Vijender Kumar, 20, had appeared for the economics exam of the NOS. Their interrogation led to the arrest of Ajay Kumar, an employee of the school where the examination was being held and Shashi Bhushan, owner of a private coaching institute.

The modus operandi of the racketeers was simple yet effective. Candidates who wished to clear the higher secondary examination used to approach Bhushan who ran a coaching institute near the school.

"Bhushan had tied up with Sharma, who had roped in Ajay, a PT teacher in his school. The candidate was asked to arrange a person who was ready to write exam in his place, then the school teachers used to facilitate the fake candidate. Bhushan charged between R5,000 to R7,000 for each paper. He paid R3,000 per candidate per paper to Sharma, who used to share the money with Kumar. The racket has been running for the past four years,” said Joy Tirkey, additional DCP (crime).