The police in Pune, Nagpur and Panaji have detained 21 suspects for leaking the question paper of an army recruitment exam conducted on Sunday, in a coordinated pre-dawn action. The cooperative move was led by Thane police’s crime branch, which discovered about the paper leak.
The convicts also include a retired army officer along with a senior paramilitary officer. The paper was being dispersed on a messaging service to the recipients, said the police. The question paper was for the posts of soldiers – general duty, clerk and tradesmen – and the educational qualifications for the posts vary from Class 8 to Class 12.
While the nine suspects detained in Pune, the remaining seven were agents and drivers who helped the key suspects in drawing the beneficiaries, said police. Another nine suspects were held in Nagpur with one of them is already charged in an earlier leak case.
The police also captured 210 candidates, who gathered together in a marriage hall in Pune’s Hudkeshwar. The candidates were unconstrained after questioning.
A BSF jawan was among the three suspects held in Goa. “All the suspects are being handed over to the Thane police for further action, including arrests,” said a police officer as per a report in TOI.
Investigators believes the paper leak to be the work of an organized racket involving people running coaching academies for army job recruitments along with some “insiders” aware with the handling of exam papers.
