The Haridwar police have arrested eight persons involved with Mukesh Saini, the alleged leader of copying scam in the forest guard recruitment examination.
Earlier, the police had arrested Saini and three others including the reviewing officer who has been suspended.
Addressing the media at the Civil Lines Kotwali in Roorkee on Monday, the senior superintendent of police Senthil Avoodai Krishnaraj S said that on February 16, the examination was conducted for recruitment of forest guard by the Uttarakhand Subordinate Services Selection Commission.
A candidate had complained of copying being facilitated through Bluetooth in the examination. After this, a case was filed against eight people including two coaching class operators at Manglaur Kotwali. Four have already been arrested in this case, including coaching centre directors Mukesh Saini and Kuldeep Rathi.
The SSP said that Rachit Pundir, Dishant Dhiman, Rahul and Sandeep Pundir were arrested in this case along with a car. The accused revealed during interrogation that ten days before the examination, everyone had prepared a plan together with Mukesh Saini.
As planned, Saini, Sandeep, Rahul and Dishant had bought the pre-activated SIM cards as part of their plan to tamper with the test paper. At the same time, room inspector Rachit Pundir, posted at the examination center at BSM Inter College, took photographs of the set of papers and sent it to Mukesh Saini who solved the questions and got them copied in various examination centers.
The same work was also done in the examination conducted in the second shift.
Along with this, Avnish Ahmad, Ziaul Rehman, Shahil and Rajat Goel were also arrested on charges of providing pre-activated SIMs on the basis of fake IDs. A car, a mobile phone and a mobile bill were also recovered from the accused.
The Garhwal deputy inspector general and SSP have announced rewards of Rs 5,000 and Rs 2,500 respectively for the police team which caught the accused.