He sent questions to wife over WhatsApp, got answers over his mobile phone headset

It could have been a scene straight out of Munna Bhai MBBS, except that the protagonist was a trainee cop instead of an underworld don.

A young IPS officer on probation, writing his civil services exam again in the hope of clearing the IAS this time, was caught using a bluetooth device to get answers for the questions. Not very different from how the character played by Sanjay Dutt gave his medical entrance exam in the movie, Munna Bhai MBBS, or Kamal Haasan did in the film’s Tamil version, Vasool Raja MBBS. While in the films a professor helped the stars, for Safeer Karim, it was his wife, Joyce Joy.

Karim, who hails from Kerala, was allotted the Tamil Nadu cadre after he cleared the UPSC exams for the first time.

His wife, a visiting faculty at an IAS coaching centre, was helping him from Hyderabad. He would send pictures of the question paper by WhatsApp to his wife in Hyderabad, and she would call him on the phone with the answers.

Police arrested Karim on Saturday, following a tip-off from the Intelligence Bureau (IB).

A mobile phone, a bluetooth device, and wireless earplug speakers were seized from Karim, Assistant Superintendent of Police (Trainee), barely minutes before he was to begin writing the Civil Services mains exam conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).

Soon after the candidates assembled in the hall at the Presidency Girls’ Higher Secondary School, Egmore, a special team of the Chennai Police searched each candidate. Karim was found to be in possession of the electronic devices, concealed in the folds of his clothes.

Ms. Joy was detained by the police in Hyderabad on Monday. Along with her, a teacher of La Excellency Coaching Institute at Ashoknagar crossroads, Rambabu was also detained.

“Cases under Section 420 (cheating) and 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) have been registered against the duo. We have also invoked the provisions under the Information Technology Act,” a senior police official said.

“Rambabu used to go to Karim’s coaching centres in Kerala and teach there. For helping Karim to get into IAS, he demanded that Karim’s coaching institutes be renamed as La Excellency coaching centre,” Hyderabad police Task Force (TF) Additional DCP Shashidhar Raju told The Hindu.

(With inputs from Marri Ramu in Hyderabad)