MUMBAI/TITWALA: Rohit Singh, 24, a science and maths tutor, was arrested on Wednesday on charges of circulating via WhatsApp
SSC question papers leaked by Firoz Khan to the students of Brilliant Classes, run by Khan. They are probing if he also sent them to students of another five tutorials classes in Ambernath, Badlapur and Ulhasnagar that he was linked to.
Khan, 47, his office boy Imran Shaikh 45, and an IT student Anwarun Hasan, 21, were arrested on Tuesday for leaking as many as five SSC papers — algebra, geometry, science-I, science-II and history & political science.
During investigations, police found that Shaikh helped his son, who is taking the SSC exam, to the leaked question papers.
Khan, a maths teacher at Kids Paradise, a school in Mumbra, used to click photos of the question papers on his mobile phone and send them to Singh. The tutor received the leaked question papers for the first four days, but on Tuesday, Khan sent it to his office boy Shaikh as Singh was busy. “We are investigating the core of the leak. We suspect many more teachers linked to Singh are involved,” said Daya Nayak, investigating officer of the Amboli police station. The paper leak was noticed by invigilator Sandhya Pawar from MVM High School in Andheri (West) and a case was filed with the Amboli police. They arrested Khan from his Ambernath residence in the wee hours on Tuesday. Ambernath police had arrested Khan for the SSC algebra paper leak on March 14, 2013, and again in a sodomy complaint by a student of his coaching class in 2015.
A teacher employed at Khan’s coaching class said in her statement to Amboli police on Wednesday that during the exams, students queued up outside the class every day by 7am. She might be turned into a witness in the case. The principal of Kids Paradise claimed that she opened the question paper bundles after 10am, but Khan managed to circulate them between 9.15am and 9.30am. “We are going to call the head of Kids Paradise School in Mumbra, from where Khan leaked the question papers,” said Amboli senior inspector Bharat Gaikwad.
The Titwala police have got in touch with their Amboli counterparts for leads on two absconding tutors linked to the leak: Vinita Khatwani and Mona Bhabhi. On Wednesday, TOI visited Ulan Chawl near MMM School in Ambernath (West) where Brilliant Classes is situated and found that neighbours had a negative opinion about Khan. “We have learnt that he had assured many students that they would pass SSC even in the past,” said one resident. (With inputs from Vinamrata Borwankar)
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