While the three arrests in Alipur have no link to the fresh arrests, the student did point police in the direction of the accused in Una. (In picture: Angry over CBSE re-test, students earlier held protests)
A week ago, when a Special Investigation Team led by DCP G Ramgopal Naik arrested three teachers from Alipur in connection with the economics paper leak, they had also been led to a student in Rohini, who told police he had received the handwritten questions from another source on WhatsApp.
While the three arrests in Alipur have no link to the fresh arrests, the student did point police in the direction of the accused in Una. “When the student’s claim was checked, police reached a woman in Rohini, who told them she had received the paper from a relative in Chandigarh,” said a police source.
A team was immediately sent to Chandigarh to question her relative. “The relative told police she had got a handwritten question paper from a teacher, Rakesh Kumar, based in Himachal Pradesh’s Una district. The team arrested Rakesh and two others Friday,” said the source.
Also read | Three arrested from Himachal: Accused leaked CBSE paper to help girl he taught, says police
According to police, Rakesh told them that while he leaked the paper to help a girl student, a relative from Chandigarh had also been pressuring him to share the questions.
He dictated the questions to his student, and asked her to write them down, police said. “The girl wrote them on seven pages and Rakesh clicked the photos to send them to the relative in Chandigarh,” the officer said.
Police said Rakesh has been providing tuitions to the girl for four years, and took Rs 1,500 per month. “Rakesh knew that sending the printed paper could be dangerous as it has the centre’s code on every page. So he asked his student to note down the questions,” the officer said.
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Special Commissioner of Police R P Upadhyaya said Rakesh did not imagine the leak would spread so far and wide.
Fifteen personnel, including ACP Rajesh Kumar, inspector Sushil Kumar, three sub-inspectors and 10 head constables and constables, cracked the case. “They checked seven chains on WhatsApp groups and questioned 33 persons. The 34th person was the woman from Rohini,” said Upadhyaya.