CBI to probe Himachal Pradesh paper leak case; 'kingpin' held in UP

Shimla, May 17

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The Himachal Government today decided to hand over the probe into the police constable recruitment paper leak case to the CBI. The case involves suspects from 10 states.

Facilitating pan-india investigation

The SIT has done a wonderful job, but to facilitate pan-India probe, we have decided to hand over the case to CBI. Jai Ram Thakur, HP CM

CM Jai Ram Thakur said 73 arrests had been made so far. “To facilitate the probe across India, we decided to hand over the case to the CBI,” the CM said at a press conference. The BJP regime in the state has come in for severe criticism for handing over the probe to police officials when the entire process for filling 1,334 vacancies was being handled by the Police Department itself. “The government acted promptly by registering an FIR, cancelled the paper and constituted an SIT,” he said, dismissing Opposition criticism.

Thakur said the suspected kingpin, Shiv Bahadur Singh, had been arrested from Varanasi, besides an accused from Bihar. One car, 15 mobile phones, a laptop and Rs 8.49 lakh had been seized in the case so far, he added.

He said, “It was 11 pm when I ordered the registration of an FIR after it was confirmed that the paper had been leaked.”

The doubts of paper leak were confirmed as the toppers could not answer even basic questions, he said.

Around 75,000 candidates had appeared for the written test which was held on March 27.