On the eve of the written exams for recruiting 41,520 UP Police constables, a cheating racket was busted by Special Task Force (STF) and 20 members were arrested from different parts of the state on Sunday night.
The DGP office however confirmed the arrest of 17 accused. The highest number of 11 paper solvers were arrested from Gorakhpur, eight from Allahabad and one from Azamgarh.One of the accused is a native of Patna (Bihar).
Denying the leak of papers, DIG (law and Order) Praveen Kumar claimed that it seemed that someone made mischief by uploading a fake question paper and answer on social media. He said that a probe was on to confirm whether it was made to spread confusion or not.
The DIG also denied that ornaments of girl candidates were forcibly seized by the staff and explained that an advisory was already issued in this regard and candidates, who still came with ornaments on, removed them outside the examination centreon their own.
On Monday morning, DGP OP Singh himself visted a couple of examination centres in lucknow to check arrangements and ensure flawless examination.
Drtailingthe arrestof paper solvers, IG (STF) Amitabh Yash said that the gang members took money from gullible candidates for providing solvers in their place during written examinations.
Yash said that the kingpin - Anil Giri - confessed to taking money from several candidates for providing ‘solvers’ for the exam in Gorakhpur. The others arrested from Gorakhpur include Anand Yadav who used to solve papers. Yadav is a Science graduate and also done llB, while his aide Amarnath Yadav worked as the conduit for the gang.
Sources said that around Rs 4 lakh and identity cards of dozens of candidates were recovered from them. An FIR was registered at Cantonment police station in Gorakhpur.
In Allahabad, the STF arrested five persons including Irfan Ahmed of Handia, Imran of Allahabad, lawyer Satendra Kumar Singh of Allahabad High Court, Kaushal from Allahabad and Pawan Kumar Singh of Patna.
During quizzing, Pawan Singh admitted that he was to sit in place of Ram Kumar Yadav of Mirzapur.
In a separate move, SSP (Allahabad), Nitin Tiwari claimed that three others were arrested from the district and a spy microphone and a hearing device were seized from them.
Tiwari said the arrested included Phool Chand Patel (an agent) and Manish Kumar Yadav and Ajay Kumar Yadav, who were to take the examination.
One person was also arrested from Bulundshahr, but his identity was yet to be known.
IG Amitabh Yash said that the STF was raiding some other locations to arrest other members related to the gang. He said that solvers were generally bright students who entered the examination centres with forged documents with superimposed photographs.
Yash said that bluetooth devices such as spy-mic have been used in certain examinations earlier. “They are small devices that can be concealed inside the ear and generally, the mobile device is strapped somewhere on the body so that answers can be dictated,” he said.
The IGP stressed that there was no problem in conducting the examination which went off smoothly across the state.
On the other hand, a report from Allahabad said that irate youths ransacked five government buses at Civil lines bus station late on Sunday night. Around 10,000 students were trying to get transport to reach their centers and upon failingin their pursuit, they veentedtheir ire on the buses.
A UP Police official said that around 22.67 lakh youths appeared for UP Police constables recruitment examination for 41,520 posts. There were 860 examination centers made in 56 district headquarters for the examination.
For the first time, examinees had to give bio-metric attendance and their answer sheets had bar codes. Besides, in each of the examination rooms had CCTV cameras and not more than 24 students were allowed to sit in one room.
The examination would be also held on Tuesday. Varanasi zone has the highest number of 5.69 lakh candidates appearing in this exam, while in lucknow zone, there are around four lakh students.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath expressed his condolence over the death of an aspirant in a road accident in Varanasi. The candidate died as the bus in which he was travelling overturned.