UPSSSC exam leaked, cops arrest 11 after paper allegedly sold for Rs 7 lakh

The recruitment examination, which was scheduled to be held at 364 centres across the state on Sunday, was cancelled following reports of the leak.

The UP Subordinate Service Selection Commission (UPSSSC) recruitment examination scheduled for Sunday morning was postponed after authorities received information that the question paper was leaked.

Police arrested 11 persons, including five aspirants and six involved in leaking the question papers. (HT Photo)

The UP Special Task Force (STF) arrested 11 people, including a primary school teacher suspected to be the mastermind behind the leak of the tubewell operators’ recruitment exam paper, from Meerut on Sunday morning.

The recruitment examination was scheduled to be held at 364 centres across the state. The commission said the fresh schedule for the examination will be announced soon.

Senior superintendent of police, STF, Abhishek Singh said the arrested included five exam aspirants and six involved in leaking the paper. He further identified the primary school teacher, Sachin Chowdhary, as the mastermind.

Singh said Chowdhary used his connections to sell the leaked question paper for around Rs 7 lakh each. Police had laid out a plan to catch Chowdhary red-handed while he handed over the leaked question papers to exam aspirants about 15 hours before the test.

Government authorities were alerted about the leak after the questions from the seized papers matched those in the real question papers, Singh said. Subsequently, authorities announced their decision to postpone the examination.

According to the police, Chowdhary frequently made phone calls to specific numbers over the past few days; police think Chowdhary was corresponding with those involved in leaking the questions. More raids are being conducted to arrest the others involved in the racket.

The tubewell operator exam was scheduled for a total of 3,210 vacancies and nearly two lakh aspirants had applied for it. As soon as news of the exam being postponed broke, students began protesting outside exam centres against the authorities.