Jayanthi Pawar By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: A trainee IPS officer was allegedly caught trying to do a Munnabhai to better his UPSC score here on Monday. Just as Sanjay Dutt used a bluetooth-linked device to write his medical term tests in that Bollywood blockbuster Munnabhai MBBS, Safeer Karim, 27, was caught red-handed using a cellphone and wireless earphones while taking the civil services exam.

He had cleared the UPSC exam in 2015 with an All India Rank of 112, and is currently posted as trainee Assistant Superintendent of Police in Tirunelveli district.

As he was writing the general studies paper at the Presidency Girls Higher Secondary School in Egmore, sleuths from the Intelligence Bureau (IB) caught him while he was on a call with his wife Joicy Joy, who was in Hyderabad.

“IB officers got suspicious when he wrote another paper on Saturday, so they were watching him,” said a senior police officer. To avoid suspicion, Safeer promptly handed over a cellphone while entering the exam hall on Monday. But he allegedly sneaked in another phone.

Safeer, who hails from Ernakulam in Kerala, was serving as station-in-charge at Nanguneri sub division in Tirunelveli district during his training period.

“He was an electronics engineering graduate and course director at a civil services coaching institute that has branches in Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad and Bhopal. He had also cleared the CAT exam,” said a police source.

Safeer was handed over to the police and booked under IPC sections 420, 120B, 34 and section 66 of Information Technology Act. He was later remanded in judicial custody.