Police unravel cheating in Naib Tehsildar exam, accused took Rs 22 lakh from candidates

Tribune News Service

Karam Prakash

Patiala, November 15

Patiala Police — along with the Counter Intelligence team — claimed to have busted a gang involved in the paper leak of Naib Tehsildar exam conducted in May by the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC).

Five members of the gang, who had helped the candidates in clearing the exam, have already been arrested. The candidates, who resorted to cheating in clearing the Examination, were among the toppers in the examination results, revealed the Patiala Inspector General of Police, Mukhwinder Singh Chhina.

The accused have been identified as Navraj Choudhary, Gurpreet Singh, Harvinder Singh, Jatinder Singh, Sonu Kumar and Jainpal Singh.

The accused, who have been booked under 419, 420, 468, 471 and 120 –B of IPC and IT Act, had taken Rs 22 lakh from each candidate.

Elaborating on the modus operandi, the police said the dummy candidates were sent to the examination centres, who did leak the different sets of question papers with the help of wireless cameras to the control room that was set up at a place in Haryana.

In the control room, experts prepared the answer keys. Thereafter, the accused, who were sitting outside the examination centres, dictated the answers to their candidates through GSM and Bluetooth devices.

The candidates, a few of them were among toppers, had taken the GSM devices with SIM cards, for cheating, right there in the examination centres. Police has already recovered 11 GSM devices and seven mini Bluetooth earbuds, 12 mobile phones, one laptop and two pen drives used in the scam by the candidates and accused facilitators.

Notably, leaders of various parties, soon after the release of the list in September month, had started levelling of charges of wrongdoing. Sukhpal Singh Khaira of the Congress and Bikram Majithia of the SAD and some aspirants had made the allegations of a scam and cheating in the said recruitment.

IG Mukhwinder Chinna said that they had already informed the government and Punjab Public Service Commission about the cheating that happened in the exam of the Naib Teshildar. “After collecting detailed information from the accused, the candidates will be arrested – soon,” said IG Chhina, on Tuesday evening.

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