Security leak: Man enters LRD exam hall with phone

AHMEDABAD: Contrary to the Gujarat police’s official claim of foolproof and peaceful Lok Rakshak Dal (LRD) examination, which was marred with controversy due to the paper-leak scam last month, a man from Mehsana area successfully entered an examination hall in a school in Thaltej with his cellphone and allegedly sent the question paper to someone to get the questions solved.

This has exposed the claims of stringent Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) of Gujarat police officials.

The man, identified as Jayesh Vihabhai Chaudhari (30), a resident of Boriyavi village in Mehsana district, has been booked under charges of breach of trust, violation of notification and criminal conspiracy along with several sections of the Information and Technology Act by Sola high court police.

Police officials said that Chaudhari had made a special pocket in his thermal jacket’s backside in which he had kept a smart-phone of his brother. “He was trying to get answers by sending the question-papers to someone. It seems that the person, whom he was sending the question, was giving him reply. But fortunately, he was caught just 10 minutes after the exam began,” said Sola high court police inspector D H Gadhvi.

When asked how he breached the security despite having foolproof police deployment, Gadhvi said, “He wore a bulky jacket with fur in it due to which the security personnel, who checked front part, did not find anything hidden in the backside of the jacket.”

Surprisingly, when the man was caught by a clerk of the school, Ramesh Patel, he had deleted everything from his cellphone, said Gadhvi, adding, “We have already sent the phone to forensic science laboratory to find out what was sent to whom.”

Additional DGP and chairman of class -3 police recruitment board Vikas Sahay said he had received the information and a complaint has been registered at Sola police station. “Let us wait for what comes out of the investigation. This does not seem to be a big issue and the local police will be able to solve the case as the candidate was caught within minutes of him clicking the pictures of the LRD paper,” Sahay said.

Meanwhile, state police claimed that the LRD (fixed pay constable) exam got over on Sunday peacefuuly. The exam was held at 2,440 centres across the state.

However, the number of candidates dramatically reduced to around 7 lakh from 8.76 lakh who were issued call letter for exams. Students appeared in the exams for 9,713 jobs of LRD.

Barring a few hiccups, when a girl candidate from Limbdi left the exams as she got a blank question paper and a student met with an accident while returning after appearing in the exams, the procedure went off peacefully.

Additional DGP and chairperson of class-3 police recruitment board, Vikas Sahay, with Rangte IGP Manoj Shashidaran and member of the board SP, Virendra Singh Yadav thanked the state establishment for helping them conduct the exams peacefully.