Trail may lead all the way to Delhi, say officials.

The Thane Police Crime Branch on Sunday busted a racket spanning at least two States where question papers of the Army’s recruitment examinations were obtained from inside sources and sold to aspirants.

The police arrested 18 in connection with the fraud and about 350 Army aspirants were picked up from Pune, Nagpur and Goa, but released later.

Officials confirmed to The Hindu that their investigation so far indicate that the source of the leak is a highly placed one, and that the probe is likely to extend all the way to New Delhi. There are also possibilities that the leak may have extended to several other States.

According to Thane Crime Branch officers, the police received a tip-off on Friday evening. “We were informed that some people were contacting Army aspirants from Thane and offering to provide them with question papers of the Army Recruitment Board exams, as well as forged domicile certificates to enable them to appear for the exams from other centres. We formed four teams to work on the information and in the early hours of Sunday morning, conducted raids in Pune, Nagpur and Goa,” said Thane Joint Commissioner Ashutosh Dumbare.

The police have ascertained that images of the question papers were sent to the accused through WhatsApp; the accused, in turn, printed out the papers and provided them to aspirants.

Mr. Dumbare said, “We e-mailed copies of the question papers to the office of the Director General, Army Recruitment Board, as well as to Military Intelligence officials, and they confirmed that the question papers we had seized were exactly the ones that were going to be used for Sunday’s exams. The exams were to be conducted for four categories, and the accused had provided question papers for all the four categories to aspirants as per their requirements in exchange for anything between ₹2 lakh to ₹5 lakh per head.”

Police teams picked up nine accused and 79 aspirants in Pune, six accused and 222 aspirants in Nagpur, and three accused and 49 aspirants in Goa. All the aspirants were found to be in possession of the question papers, which were allegedly provided to them by the accused. The police took details of all the 350 aspirants detained in the raids and released them. They will be called back for further inquiries. The 18 accused were placed under arrest and the police obtained their transit remand from the courts concerned. They are expected to be brought to Thane shortly. The arrested include an ex-Serviceman and a jawan of the BSF.

Asked if Army personnel or officers are suspected to be involved in the racket, Mr. Dumbare said, “The possibility cannot be ruled out.”