3 held in Jharkhand, 9 sent to juvenile home

RANCHI: Jharkhand police on Saturday placed three persons under arrest and sent nine students to a juvenile remand home in connection with the CBSE class X mathematics paper leak. On Friday, eight of these suspects were detained by police.

While two of those arrested, Satish Pandey and Pankaj Singh, are owners of Study Vision, a coaching centre at Chatra, the third accused, Hamesh, teaches at the institute. Of the nine students, seven are from Chatra while two were brought from Patna for investigations.


Chatra SP Akhilesh B Variar told media persons that the leaked paper reached Study Vision through the two students in Patna. “However, we are not sure where these Patna-based students got the question papers from. We are questioning the students to establish national links, if any. No links with Delhi have been established yet,” Variar added.


Jharkhand police detained the Patna students on Friday after their counterparts in Chatra pointed the needle of suspicion towards them. Police said the leaked questions were being circulated on WhatsApp as handwritten notes on March 27, a day before the mathematics exam. The questions, and their answers, were in exact sequence as that in the question paper.


While police sources initially said that Pandey was linked to Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), Yagywalkya Shukla, state organising secretary of ABVP in Jharkhand, denied the allegations.


Shukla told TOI that Satish Pandey is neither a district office bearer nor a member of ABVP. “He held the position of district coordinator of ABVP for Chatra before the students’ union elections held across the state in December 2017, but was later removed from the organisation. Only students can be office bearers in ABVP and Pandey was not enrolled in any course and his membership was therefore void,” he said.


Shukla added that ABVP workers in Hazaribag staged a protest near Study Vision centre in the city which was a branch of the Chatra-based coaching institute. Chatra police have constituted an SIT that is actively pursuing the leads and developments in the case. Police have failed to confirm involvement of any other metro cities and whether money exchanged hands in the case.