Patna: Six held with 49 SSC admit cards, Rs 9.5 lakh cash

PATNA: The city police intercepted an SUV in Phulwarisharif on Wednesday and arrested six people, who were carrying 49 admit cards for Staff Selection Commission’s (SSC) constable recruitment exam, and seized Rs 9.5 lakh in cash from them.
Police said those arrested have allegedly confessed to rigging the exam conducted between February and March this year, by getting ‘experts’ to appear in place of actual candidates for money. Candidates selected via this SSC exam are recruited in various paramilitary forces, the NIA, and other security agencies.
The arrests were made near Pulia tola chauraha after the SUV ignored a signal from the cops to stop and raced away. The police team then chased down the vehicle and nabbed the suspects.
“The gang confessed that they had replaced candidates not only in the SSC examination, but also other examinations, including for recruitment in the railways. Apart from the 49 admit cards, educational documents of the candidates were also seized from the arrested persons,” Patna SSP Garima Malik said.
The SSP said the gang members are all residents of Bihar, but were operating in Uttar Pradesh and most of the candidates, whose documents were seized, were from UP. Malik said the gang was returning after collecting money from places like Varanasi and Allahabad.
The arrested persons have been identified as Dheeraj Kumar Singh, Shivkant Kumar, Ankur Raj, Manohar Kumar, Sunil Kumar and Rohit Kumar.
“Dheeraj is the kingpin and is involved in rigging examinations since at least last seven years,” Malik said, adding, more arrests would be made soon.
A senior member of the investigation team said Dheeraj used to charge at least Rs 4 lakh from each candidate. “He told police that out of 49, 15 candidates cleared the examination as they were replaced by scholars. Admit cards were tampered to replace the candidate’s photograph with that of the dummy candidate,” he said.
“Dheeraj told the police that he had cracked the recruitment examination for sub-inspectors in Jharkhand Police but did not join as he earned much more by rigging exams. He owns an expensive SUV and other properties,” the officer said.
“We suspect some commission employees are also in hand-in-gloves with the gang as it used to get finger prints of scholars taken during examination changed with that of the original candidates at a later stage,” the officer added.