Racket manipulating SSC exams busted

Shahira Naim

Tribune News Service

Lucknow, March 28

With the arrest of four persons, an interstate gang has been busted which manipulated the online Staff Selection Commission (SSC) examination with the help of “solvers”.

Using the software tools like “Team Viewer and Ammy”, around 150 solvers engaged by the gang wrote the online SSC examination on behalf of the candidates for a payment of Rs 15 lakh.  The Staff Selection Commission conducts the examination for subordinate services.

A joint operation of the UP Police’s special task force and their Delhi counterpart arrested four accused — alleged gang leader Sonu Kumar, a Ghazibad resident, Ajay Kumar Jaiswal, Paramjit Singh, both from Bahadurgarh, and Gaurav Nayyar of Delhi.

The gang was based in Delhi and the FIR has been registered under various sections at Timarpur police station in North Delhi. The police have recovered three laptops, 10 mobile phones, five bluetooth devices, a hard disk, four pen drives, a Jio dongle, one router, three luxury vehicles and Rs 51 lakh in cash from the accused.

Following inputs about irregularities in the online examinations in the NCR, Haryana, Rajasthan and western UP STFs had put several suspected persons on surveillance.

The modus operandi was simple. The gang charged a large amount of money from SSC aspirants and illegally used Team Viewer and Ammy software tools to access their computers where professional solvers wrote the paper from their laptops sitting far away.

On a tip-off, the STF raided the house of one Harpal in Timarpur and found a group of four young men solving SSC ongoing examination of CHSL (Combined Higher Secondary level) and LDC data entry operator being conducted in three shifts.

Many SSC contenders had been protesting through demonstrations and dharna in many cities, demanding a CBI enquiry into the irregularities in conducting the examinations including leaking of papers. They had been demanding a CBI probe into the alleged leak of questions of the Combined Graduate Level (Tier-II) Examination 2017 held from 17 to 22 February.

On March 4, SSC Chairman Ashim Khurana had recommended a CBI inquiry into the alleged paper leak but the enquiry was yet to begin.