education

Updated: Jan 27, 2019 20:52 IST

The UP Special Task Force (STF) on Sunday busted an exam-rigging racket, a solvers’ gang and a gang of fraudsters after arrest of three people each from Lucknow, Mathura and Agra during the recruitment test for around 49,000 posts of constables of civil and armed police. In separate incidents, three other including two proxy candidates appearing in place of other candidates were arrested from Agra and Firozabad while a candidate was nabbed using unfair means from Agra.

The UP Police Recruitment Board (UPPRB) was conducting two-day exam for the posts of reserved citizen police and reserved regional armed constabulary on January 27 and January 28. Lakhs of candidates turned up for the test at 720 exam centres across 35 districts. These included 62 centres in Lucknow.

STF officials claimed that the miscreants’ attempt to rig the exam was foiled due to the alertness of the state police.

SSP of STF Abhishek Singh said the solver gang was busted after arrest of the mastermind, Nishant Prabhakar, his close accomplice Santosh Tewari and the solver Santosh Kumar, who was appearing in place of one Sadan Singh. He said the solver was arrested from Vasudev Memorial Girls Degree College in Hariharnagar, Madiaon and the two other including the mastermind was arrested later on his revelation.

The SSP said three persons, including a leader of the gang involved in helping candidates by informing correct answers through hidden electronic devices, were arrested from highway police station of Mathura. He said four electronic communication devices, one ear phone device, one button camera, admit cards and identity cards of several aspirants were recovered from them.

He said the gang leader was Aligarh resident Pawan Kumar, who with help of his associates, was involved in helping candidates through electronic devices. Two others arrested along with him were close associate Raj Kumar and one aspirant Jeevan Singh.

During interrogation, the gang leader said he charged Rs 6 lakh per candidate for helping them in the exam, said the officer.

The SSP said three members of fraudsters’ gang were arrested from Agra. They were identified as Shiv Kumar and Bhuvanesh, residents of Mathura and Satyam Katiyar of Kanpur Dehat.

The trio used to dupe gullible unemployed youths by promising success in different recruitment exams. The three accused revealed that they used to disappear after collecting money from the aspirants, he added.

He said Satyam Katiyar was wanted in similar frauds in other recruitment exams of different states. “For last three years, Katiyar was wanted by Madhya Pradesh’s Jabalpur police for similar fraud. Efforts are on to cross-check the criminal background of his two accomplices,” he added.

The Agra city police arrested a youth Rahul from Firozabad for appearing in place of Dinesh from the same district. According to police, the arrest was made from Ramesh Chand Dinesh Chand Sharma Saraswati Vidya Mandir at Albatia in Jagdishpura (Agra) and a case was registered.



The accused had put his photo on the admit card of the applicant, but his signatures and biometrics did not match, leading to the arrest. A case was registered under various sections of IPC and Examination Act against Dinesh and Rahul at Jagdishpura police station.

Meanwhile, another arrest was made when an applicant Khilona Prasad of Mathura was nabbed from Child Progressive School at Pushpanjali Ashiana in Agra when he was found using a bluetooth device. The accused was booked under Examination Act at Sikandra police station in Agra.

Another proxy candidate identified as Ankit Kumar Singh was arrested from a school in Firozabad. He was appearing for Ravi Kumar who too was arrested from outside the center in Firozabad. ‘Both belong to village in Aligarh district and have been booked under various section of Indian Penal Code’ informed RK Singh, the SP City for Firozabad.

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