The police team investigating the alleged paper leak of a law examination at the Lucknow University (LU) will move the court to match voice samples of the accused with the voices in the leaked audio clips that went viral and reportedly contain a conversation between a student and professors of the varsity’s law department.
The decision follows accused law student Richa Mishra’s refusal to identify her voice in the audio clips in front of the police on Wednesday.
Investigating officer (IO) sub-inspector Abhay Singh said, “Richa Mishra was called to identify her voice in the audio clips but she refused to do so. We will now move the court to seek permission for analysing the voice samples of all the accused.”
To recall, an FIR was lodged at the Hasanganj police station after allegations of paper leak surfaced on December 11. Richa Mishra and Ashok Kumar Sonkar, assistant professor at LU’s law department, were named as the main accused in it. Teacher Rakesh Kumar Singh is the third accused in the case.
Police said they had interviewed five teachers of the law department in connection with the paper leak case and four of them had refused to identify the voices in the audio clips.
“Only Ashok Kumar Sonkar identified his voice in the recordings but he maintained that he was only informing the student about the syllabus, not about the questions that would come in the exam,” said the IO.
{{/usCountry}}“Only Ashok Kumar Sonkar identified his voice in the recordings but he maintained that he was only informing the student about the syllabus, not about the questions that would come in the exam,” said the IO.
{{/usCountry}}Soon after the audio clips went viral, the varsity suspended both Rakesh Kumar Singh and Ashok Kumar Sonkar for reportedly informing Richa Mishra about the exam questions in advance over phone. The LU administration also cancelled the law exams.
However, the department teachers condemned the action of vice-chancellor SK Shukla and accused him of being the one who introduced Richa Mihra to them.
Later, when the issue flared up, the special task force was asked to take over the probe on the directions of the chief minister.