LUCKNOW: Twelve more candidates who allegedly used unfair means during the online examination for recruitment of sub-inspectors were arrested from Mahanagar in the city on Sunday.
With this 18 people have been arrested so far while the owners of examination centres are under scanner, said the police. The racket was busted on Friday after the arrest of six persons and could be bigger.
The Uttar Pradesh Police Recruitment and Promotion Board (UPPRPB) had conducted the online exam for the S-I’s post in November-December last year.
Those arrested on Sunday were identified as Hem Gupta and Rahul of Haryana, Yadvendra of Mainpuri, Ankit Kumar of Shamli, Rahul of Jind in Haryana, Devendra Kumar of Hathras, Satyendra Kumar, Dev Chaudhary and Ankur Kumar of Saharanpur, Hari Mohan, Sachin and Jitesh Kumar of Firozabad.
They have been arrested under the charges of forgery, criminal conspiracy and under section 10 of UP Public Exam Act 1998, the police said.
“The accused were caught during scrutiny of documents and a physical test which is underway in 12 districts. The Uttar Pradesh Police Recruitment and Promotion Board had given the task to an institute to analyse the Candidate Response Log (CRL). The agency tasked to analyze the CRL found evidence of use of unfair means by the arrested candidates,” said additional deputy commissioner, North Zone, Prachi Singh.
She said the candidates were quizzed and failed to give satisfactory answers. These candidates did not solve the questions and later they solved all the questions in a span of one time.
They probably were helped by the exam centre manager and could have used hi-tech tools to solve the question papers.
A team will also take them in remand to find out the involvement of others in the case.
An officer privy to the probe said the candidates paid hefty amount to the examination centre owners allowing them to adopt unfair means while taking the exams.
“We are now conducting a probe against the owners of the examination centres who were in touch with the examinees. All the district exam centres where the arrested examinees appeared will also be blacklisted,” said the officer.
Police said that they have tracked the money trail of three of six candidates who were arrested on May 6.
Rajat Kumar and Ashutosh Sharma took the online exam at Krishna Infotech’s Agra centre.
Rajat had transferred Rs 7 lakh to the owner of the centre and was to take the exam in the first shift, while Ashutosh transferred Rs 5 lakh to the owner and had to take the examination in the second shift.
Another accused Prateek Chaudhary also deposited Rs 5 lakh in the account of the owner of the exam centre in Bulandshahr.
The probe against Haseen Chaudhary, Pinku Kumar and Deepak Kumar is still under way.
