Nearly six months after a recruitment test was held by the Punjab Government for the post of the naib tehsildars, the Punjab Police on Tuesday arrested five persons for allegedly helping some of the candidates in cheating during the exam held in May this year.
Among the arrested, three were identified to be from Punjab’s Patiala and two from Haryana’s Kurukshetra and Jind. The police has seized 11 electronic devices, seven mini Bluetooth earbuds, 12 mobiles, a laptop, and two pen drives from the accused.
Five persons, namely Navraaj Chaudhary and Gurpreet Singh of village Dedna in Patiala, Jatinder Singh of village Bhullan in Patiala; Sonu Kumar of village Ramna Ramani in Haryana, and Varjindder Singh of village Nachar Khera, Jind, in Haryana, have been arrested.
“A deal was struck at Rs 22 lakh for helping the candidates pass the exam…At least seven to 10 more people are involved in it and are yet to be arrested. The candidates, who took the help of these people, are also being identified,” said the state Inspector General of Police MS Chhina while addressing the media in Patiala.
IGP Chinna said that in October, Congress leader and Bholath MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira had alleged a scam in the naib tehsildar recruitment test claiming that some candidates, who had failed in clerical and other tests, topped the exam for the post.
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader and former Minister Bikram Singh Majithia too had alleged a scam in the test and even sought a CBI probe into the same.
Categorically denied the allegations, the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) had, at that time, claimed that there was no evidence to suggest the recruitment was compromised in any manner.
The police on Tuesday said that a case, under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the IT Act, has been registered at the Kotwali police station in Patiala “on the basis of secret information that few persons have helped the candidates, who appeared for various recruitment exams held for government jobs to clear the test by suing fraudulent means like electronic devices to communicate the correct answers to the questions in lieu of the hefty amount of money from them”.
Eleven electronic devices, seven mini Bluetooth earbuds, 12 mobiles, a laptop, and two pen drives have been seized from the accused.
Talking about the modus operandi, Chhina said that Varjinder Singh, during investigations, disclosed that dummy candidates, who had applied for the exams purely for the purposes of capturing the picture of question papers with the help of wireless cameras, would then send it outside to predetermined persons.
The police said that the arrested persons have revealed during the investigation that they provided candidates GSM devices with SIM cards inserted in them and very small Bluetooth earbuds for seamless connectivity.
“The candidate would carry the GSM device by concealing it, usually in shoes or socks etc. Thereafter, during the exam hours, the candidate would use previously agreed signals such as coughing or tapping to communicate the test booklet series received by him to the person who is deputed for dictating the answers. The arrested accused and their associates would accordingly dictate the correct answers to the candidates during the test,” said the police.
According to the disclosure of the arrested persons, in this criminal conspiracy or racket, at least seven to 10 more persons are yet to be arrested who belong to Haryana and Punjab