WhatsApp used for cheating in railway exam; 30 held

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Suresh Dharur

Tribune News Service

Hyderabad, December 1

The cheating in examination is getting more hi-tech! At an All-India Railway Recruitment Board exam in Hyderabad, 20 candidates were caught yesterday using WhatsApp, an instant messenger, and Bluetooth devices embedded with SIM cards to answer questions.

The city police busted a racket involving use of hi-tech tools, ranging from earphones to Bluetooth devices to WhatsApp messages, to cheat in the exam.

According to police, the kingpin of the cheating racket would receive questions from candidates in the exam hall on WhatsApp. He would then send the questions to a team of experts. The experts would relay the answers on bluetooth earpieces containing SIM cards which the candidates were wearing.

The gang allegedly used earpieces with SIM cards to convey the answers to their candidates at different centres in Hyderabad, Tirupati and some other places in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

The police arrested 30 people, including 20 candidates, and recovered eight electronic devices with in-built SIM cards, two laptops, a printer, nine earpieces resembling bluetooth devices and 27 mobile phones.

The main accused has been identified as Mahender Kumar, a Railways employee who has also been arrested. “Kumar lured gullible candidates and collected Rs 5 lakh each from them. He provided electronic devices, and assured them that the answers would be dictated,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Rama Rajeswar said.

The police raided a hide-out in Malkajgiri in the city and nabbed 20 people who were in the process of dictating answers to the candidates in exam halls through electronic devices.