NEW DELHI: The CBI probe into the Vyapam scam has found at least 96 instances where candidates lied that the middlemen who hired proxies to appear for the entrance test were dead. It was alleged that a large number of bright students were hired to sit for the medical entrance examination conducted by Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board, the Hindi acronym for which is Vyapam.The original candidates were approached by middlemen who further engaged other middlemen to identify bright students in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Delhi and Rajasthan who could impersonate those taking the entrance exam. The strategy was such that the actual candidate did not know the second middleman or the impersonator. The photographs in online forms submitted by the candidates were allegedly morphed to match those of the impersonators who took the entrance exam on the payment of a fee.When the scam surfaced, candidates were asked to give the names of middlemen. The candidates instead gave the names of poor people unrelated to the scam so that the police could not reach the actual middlemen and the impersonators who appeared on behalf of them. When the CBI took over the probe, it suspected that in about 96 cases, the candidates and the middlemen were lying, prompting the agency to put them through lie detector tests.Sources said candidates and middlemen who refused to undergo the test were asked to undertake a psychological assessment test (PAT) for which their consent or court permission is not required. The CBI has so far carried out such tests in 96 cases, prompting a majority of the candidates and the middlemen to tell the truth and identify the real persons, sources said.