Bank officials, woman arrested in CBSE paper leak case 

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police today said two bank officials and a woman have been arrested over their alleged involvement in leaking the CBSE class 10 mathematics paper, in connivance with a teacher held earlier from Himachal Pradesh.

The three accused have been identified as Sheru Ram (35), branch manager of Union Bank Of India, Om Prakash (58), head cashier of the same bank and the 40-year-old woman, who had circulated hand-written question papers of class 12 economics and class 10 mathematics via instant messaging platform WhatsApp from her mobile phone which went viral on social media.

Last week, Rakesh Kumar, Amit Sharma and Ashok Kumar, all employees of DAV Centenary Public School in Una town, were arrested by the crime branch.

The three men were arrested in connection with the economics paper leak case.

The police said Rakesh, who had been teaching at the DAV school as a PGT economics teacher for eight years, was also found involved with leaking the mathematics paper before the scheduled date of the examination on March 28.

The woman, from Ferozepur in Punjab, was allegedly sent a handwritten copy of the leaked paper by Rakesh, the police said.

During interrogation, Rakesh revealed that he had also planned and executed the leak of class 10 mathematics paper.

On March 23, he not only took out the question paper bundle of Class 12 economics paper, but also took out the mathematics question paper bundle from the Bank, said Alok Kumar, joint commissioner of police (Crime).

He gave the Economics paper bundle to Amit and Ashok but kept the Mathematics paper bundle in his bag and later, opened the seal carefully and took out a question paper.

After taking the photographs of the mathematics paper on his cell phone, he kept the paper inside the cover and resealed it.

He then called one of his students to his residence and got it handwritten and took the photographs and sent them to his female relative in Firozpur through Whatsapp, said the officer.

She then sent the images to her sister in Panchkula who further sent it to her relative in Paschim Vihar.

Police said being the main custodians of the sealed question paper bundles of CBSE, the two bank officials were supposed to be present when the bank locker was opened and the centre superintendent was taking out the question paper bundle of the concerned subject on the date of the examination.

Rakesh was the centre superintendent of Jawahar Navodaya Public School in Una, where the CBSE exams were being held.

The economics paper was leaked on March 23, three days before the examination date in Una town, and was shared on WhatsApp by at least 40 groups.

The paper leak was exposed after an envelope containing four images of a hand-written copy of the question paper was delivered to the CBSE headquarters in Delhi on the evening of March 26, the day of the exam.

On March 30, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) announced the re-conduct the class 12 economics exam throughout the country on April 25.

The police has registered two cases in connection with the matter.

The first case relating to the leak of the economics paper was filed on March 27, while the other on the mathematics paper leak was registered on March 28.