CBI busts railway exam racket, arrests 26 officials

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has taken the lid off a cheating racket with the arrest of 26 railway officials in Uttar Pradesh’s Mughal Sarai. The arrests were made after the CBI found that the question paper of a departmental examination of the Railways had been leaked and distributed to candidates on Monday, a day before the examination.

The CBI has also seized Rs 1.17 crore in cash.

A top railway official had been given the responsibility of setting and preparing the question paper for the departmental examination for the posts of chief loco pilots on March 4 in the East Central Railway.

According to the agency, the officer after setting the paper, allegedly wrote all questions on a piece of paper and gave it to a loco pilot who was to appear for the examination.

After the CBI got a tip-off, it conducted raids in Mughal Sarai on the intervening night of March 3-4 and arrested 17 candidates with photocopies of the handwritten question paper.

“During the probe, it was revealed that the officer allegedly gave the handwritten question paper to a loco pilot who in turn translated it into Hindi and further gave it to another officer,” a CBI officer said.

The second officer allegedly in turn supplied copies of the question paper to candidates through a few other railway employees.

Seventeen departmental candidates, who are presently working as loco pilots, allegedly paid money for the question paper. The CBI conducted searches at eight locations, resulting in recovery of Rs 1.17 crore in cash. The amount was reportedly collected from the candidates for leaking the question paper.