The Karnataka CID, the agency probing the case, has also arrested 12 policemen, including the additional director general of police, Amrit Paul, who headed the police recruitment cell when the scam took place. Suvajit DeyThe Karnataka Police have used a mathematical probability technique, usually used in banking exams, to identify those who allegedly cheated in the police sub-inspectors’ recruitment exam that was held in October last year.
The probability check was run during the initial stages of the police investigation with the help of the Institute for Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS). The check revealed that a few candidates — including three who were arrested on October 14 — had ticked the same wrong answers for 19 questions in the multiple choice question (MCQ) category of the exam, confirming a very high probability that they received help from outside. The MCQ section had 100 questions carrying 150 marks.
Over 54,000 candidates took the PSI exam on October 3 last year across 92 centres in Karnataka. So far, 52 out of 545 candidates who qualified the test have been arrested by the police, with 19 candidates found to have cheated by using Bluetooth devices and the rest accused of tampering their answer scripts with the help of officials of the police recruitment cell and staff at the examination centres.
The Karnataka CID, the agency probing the case, has also arrested 12 policemen, including the additional director general of police, Amrit Paul, who headed the police recruitment cell when the scam took place. With the latest arrests of three candidates on October 14, the total arrests in the case have touched 102.
The CID arrested three candidates — Lakappa, Shrisail Biradar, and Shrimant Satapur — on October 14 after it ran the probability check on the answer sheets and followed it up with an analysis of cell tower data at the examination centres on October 3 last year, the day of the exam, to corroborate findings that the three candidates received external help through Bluetooth devices they took into the exam halls. The probability check had revealed that Lakappa, Shrisail and Shrimant had given the same wrong answers to 19 questions despite having written the exam at separate centers in Bengaluru, Tumkur, and Dharwad, respectively.
“If several candidates marked the same wrong choice for the same questions, then there is a 99 percent probability that they received help from the same external source. This technique is used by the IBPS to spot any attempts of cheating in recruitment exams,” a police source said.
Lakappa took the exam at New Horizon College in east Bengaluru and secured the sixth rank after scoring 21.5 marks out of 50 in the essay section of the exam and 135 out of 150 in the MCQ section.
Shrisail Biradara appeared for the exam at Siddalingeshwara Residential High School at Kyathasandra in Tumkur district and secured the 57th rank with 35.5 marks in the essay and 108.75 marks in the MCQ section.
Shrimant Satapur wrote the exam at St Joseph’s College at Dharwad and secured the 63rd rank, scoring 16 in the essay and 127.5 in the MCQ section.
The analysis of cell phone data near the examination centers revealed that the suspected candidates had used mobile phones in their possession for extended periods of time while writing the MCQ exam.
Police found that the phone number registered in Shrimant’s name was active at a cell tower near St Joseph’s High School in Dharwad on October 3, 2021, and the call records from the service provider revealed that five calls, lasting five seconds to 1,073 seconds, were received on the candidate’s number during the exam from an associate identified as Siddappa Mareppa. Of the five calls, two calls were tracked to have been made from Afzalpur in Kalaburagi district.
Police suspect R D Patil, a private contractor with political connections in Kalaburgi, to be the kingpin of the recruitment scam. Patil allegedly set up teams at different locations in the state to help candidates crack the exam, charging Rs 30 lakh to Rs 80 lakh from each candidate. It is not yet clear how Patil managed to get the question paper.
Earlier in August, the analysis of cell phone usage data from cell towers near three PSI examination centers in Kalaburagi revealed the identities of seven candidates who cheated in the exam by using Bluetooth devices. Several members of the answering team who helped the candidates have been arrested.
The CID has registered over 20 FIRs in the case and nine of the top 10 candidates who qualified the recruitment test have also been arrested.