OP Shukla, former Officer on Special Duty (OSD) of former Technical Education Minister laxmikant Sharma, surrendered at the Special Task Force (STF) police station here on Thursday.
The STF, which is investigating the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB) examination scam, had registered an FIR against Shukla in the first week of December 2013. Since, then the police had raided his residence several times and declared him as an absconder. However, after Shukla surrendered in the morning, the police officials instead of arresting him continued to grill him till late night. Officially, they did not arrest him, otherwise as per rules, within 24 hours, the police need to produce the accused in the court.
Official sources said that Shukla was the main person at the bungalow of laxmikant Sharma and police are questioning him to know the involvement of former Minister and BJP leader Sudhir Sharma in the MPPEB examination scam. Both laxmikant Sharma and Sudhir Sharma have already appeared before the STF and recorded their statements. Their names figure in the FIR, but the police have not arrested them till date. This has raised suspicion on the working of the STF. However, official sources claim that first the whole story needs to be corroborated with the statements of all the accused and only then they would be arrested. At the time of the surrender the family members of Shukla were present at the STF office in Jehangirabad. His wife and brother-in-law accompanied him during the surrender.
Notably, Shukla had gone missing after he was named in the FIR registered by the STF in which Shukla was alleged of manipulating of results in the recruitment of appointment of contractual teachers (Grade I and II) conducted by Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB). STF Addl SP Ashish Khare told that the former Technical Educations Minister laxmikant Sharma's OSD OP Shukla is being questioned, but he declined to inform as when he would be arrested.
In the earlier investigation, former exam controller Pankaj Trivedi and system analyst Nitin Mahendra who have been arrested earlier have alleged that OSD Shukla has accepted lakhs of rupees at laxmikant Sharma's residence. Till the filing of the report Shukla was under interrogation.