BENGALURU: The Karnataka Public Service Commission cancelled the examination on Sunday to select First Division Assistants (FDA) after a question paper leak on Saturday. Over 2.8 lakh candidates were scheduled to take the exam to fill 1,114 vacancies in different government departments.
Central Crime Branch sleuths arrested six people, including a person who claimed to be a commercial taxes inspector, and seized Rs 24 lakh cash, electronic gadgets and three vehicles from him.
The exam saw a record 3.7 lakh applications, of which 2.8 lakh downloaded the admission tickets.
Police: Accused hatched plot to get question paper 2 months ago
A release from KPSC stated: “The exams have been deferred in the backdrop of information that the question paper has been accessed by miscreants prior to the exam. The new date will be notified later.”
Police identified the accused as Rachappa (top right) and Chandrappa, both kingpins, and their aides Mahesh, Santosh, Srinivas and Nikith. Police said a few were arrested from Ullal near Jnanabharathi while others from different parts of the city following a tip-off.
During questioning, Chandrappa claimed to be an inspector in the commercial taxes department in Gandhinagar. Police said the accused plotted two months earlier to get the question paper.
“We’re not sure from where the paper was leaked but it was distributed to several aspirants in Bengaluru and other parts of the state,” sources said, adding: “We found hard copies and PDFs.” Joint commissioner of police (crime) Sandeep Patil said probe is on to ascertain source of the question paper.
G Sathyavathi, secretary, KPSC, in a press statement confirmed the question papers reached a few miscreants before the exam and both Kannada and English papers have been cancelled. “We checked the leaked question paper with controller of exams Divya Prabhu. The contents of the leaked paper were similar to the actual question paper.”
Police are ascertaining if the arrested are part of a new gang or members of the Shivakumaraiah gang. He is prime accused in the question paper leak of constabulary exams in November 2018 and also behind the PU paper leak in 2016.