Five men, including an IGNOU staff, were arrested for allegedly leaking question papers of MCA and BCA examinations, from its study centre at Bokaro in Jharkhand, the police said on Sunday.
The accused have been identified as Dev Shankar (31), Vivek Kumar Sharma (27), Johanson Hans (30), residents of Jharkhand, Ankit Saxena (23), a resident of Uttar Pradesh and Mohammad Iqbal (24), a resident of Delhi, they said.
Through WhatsApp
The police said that on December 8, 2018, S.G. Swami, Registrar of IGNOU, Maidan Garhi in New Delhi, had filed a complaint regarding leakage of question papers.
He said that the MCA third-semester exam was scheduled to be held on December 8, 2018 at 10 a.m. at centres across the country and in Nepal.
Mr. Swami said he received two emails from different IDs with attachment of a question papers, where the senders claimed that papers had already been leaked, the police said.
Mr. Swami filed another complainant regarding the leakage of IGNOU BCA third-semester question paper, which was circulated through WhatsApp, on the same day, they said.
During investigation, around 500 suspects were interrogated. On the basis of technical analysis, the mastermind behind this racket, Dev Shankar, was arrested on Wednesday from IGNOU study centre, Bokaro Steel City, said Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) A.K. Singla.
Mr. Singla said that during interrogation, Shankar said that he worked as a peon in the IGNOU study centre, Bokaro Steel City, Jharkhand. Shankar said he had been working there for 13 years and had the keys of the study centre.
When the staff left the centre, he went inside the supervisor’s room and opened his almirah where the question papers had been kept. He opened the sealed envelope and took photos of the paper, Mr. Singla said. Shankar sent the pictures to his accomplices on WhatsApp and they further sold those to the students, Mr. Singla added.
He sold a question paper for ₹1,500 and has been in the business since June 2016, the officer also said.
The police are interrogating them to ascertain their role in the present and other such cases, the officer said.