Uttar Pradesh’s Director General of Police Prashant Kumar, on Friday, said that three main conspirators behind the leaking of the question paper of UP Police Recruitment and Promotion Board examinations on February 17 and 18 were arrested.

Police have arrested 54 people so far in the paper leak case. The UP government had to cancel the examination after reports of large-scale leak of the question paper.

Kumar said in a press conference here: “After a thorough investigation by several teams of Uttar Pradesh Police and the Special Task Force, it has been concluded that the examination paper was leaked by these three persons.”

Kumar said, “When the examination paper was being taken from the printing press to the strong room, the accused leaked the paper.”

According to the DGP, the arrested persons were identified as Abhishek Kumar Shukla, a native of Prayagraj, Shivam Giri, a resident of Mirzapur, and Rohit Kumar Pandey, a resident of Bhadohi district.

Kumar said that the three were arrested by a team of STF in Ghaziabad on Thursday.

The accused are part of an interstate gang that leaks question papers of recruitment examinations.

According to UP Police, the responsibility of printing the question paper was given to an Ahmedabad based firm. The transportation company engaged to carry the question papers has its headquarters in Gurgaon.

DGP Prashant Kumar and STF chief Amitabh Yash said during the press conference that the papers were cancelled after the leak of the police recruitment exam paper.

A total of 178 cases have been registered so far in which 396 accused have been named while 54 accused have already been arrested so far.

The DGP disclosed that Abhishek Shukla is a former employee of an agency named TCI and Shivam Giri and Rohit Pandey are employees of TCI.

He said that TCI was responsible for the storage and transportation of the examination papers. Apart from this, Dr Shubham Mandal, a resident of Bihar, is currently in custody.

DGP Prashant Kumar said that Ravi Atri of Noida and Rajiv Nayan Mishra of Prayagraj were the main accused in the paper leak case and they were absconding.

Rajiv Nayan Mishra is also an accused in the UP TET exam and MP exam. He has been to jail earlier as well. Ravi Atri is an accused in the contract examination of Madhya Pradesh and is also wanted in Haryana.

According to the UP DGP, Ravi Atri told Abhishek Shukla that as soon as the paper reached the warehouse, he should be informed about it. Abhishek Shukla gave him information about the arrival of the paper exactly as per his instructions. A photo of the trunk box was also sent. Dr Shubham Mandal opened the trunk, took out the paper and took its photo and put the paper back in the trunk. Papers were also taken out from the warehouse on February 8.

The papers were sent to others like Vikram Pahal, Monu Dhakla, Gaurav Chaudhary, Satish Dhangarh, Neetu and Dheeraj. UP Police said the places where the mastermind distributed the papers were being investigated.