Noida: There wasn’t anything particularly amiss about the Eeco van headed to a city hotel when a police patrol team waved it down. The hour was odd – 3.30am when a night curfew is on because of the pandemic. But odder still was a ladies’ purse in a van with five men.
What followed were a series of questions by the curious cops, which led to evasive answers, a trail to the hotel in Sector 71 and the eventual arrest of a group of 18 people, who could be involved in leaking question papers of the Central Teacher Eligibility Test (C-TET), which is conducted by the CBSE.
The accidental arrests, police said, could help unearth one of the biggest exam rackets in recent times. Among the 18 are five possible candidates of C-TET as admit cards were recovered from them. They were in the middle of sharing answer keys when the police team raided the hotel — around 4 in the morning on Thursday. The cops are now trying to find out if the answer keys are indeed of questions that were asked in C-TET, which was conducted across several centres on Thursday.
Police said one of the gang members, who had a pen drive with the answer keys, escaped by the time they started searching the hotel. The alleged kingpin of the racket — a lawyer from Sonipat — is also on the run. The arrests come days after the UP-TET had to be cancelled because of a question paper leak. “Since night curfew is on, a police team deployed in Sector 60 stopped a Maruti Eeco with five men in it. It was around 3.30am. When the car was being searched, the cops found a ladies’ purse. The men were questioned, and they revealed that it belonged to a woman who was staying at a hotel in Sector 71,” said Ranvijay Singh, additional DCP, Noida.
The police team accompanied the five men to the hotel and started a search. There were 13 more persons, all of whom were subsequently arrested. What aroused suspicion among the cops were the 51 admit cards of C-TET that were recovered. The cops are now trying to ascertain the veracity of the documents.
“Apart from 51 admit cards of C-TET scheduled for today (December 30), there were three laptops and 20 cellphones. The 18 persons had five cars in total and Rs 36,000 in cash were recovered from them,” the senior officer said.
A round of questioning revealed that one of the members of the racket, named Ravi, escaped with the pen drive that allegedly contained all the answer keys. “They had gathered in the hotel to share the answer keys. The candidates were to appear in the test scheduled later in the day,” Singh said.
Each candidate is believed to have paid Rs 2.5-3 lakh for the answer keys. Although Noida did not have a centre for C-TET, it was held in Gurgaon, Mathura, Moradabad and several other cities on Thursday morning.
The police are now looking for Vinay Dahiya, the lawyer from Sonipat who had been allegedly running the network for three to four years. The arrest of the remaining gang members is crucial to find out how they managed to procure the question papers and the answer keys, police said.
An initial investigation has revealed that among the arrested are Bhavani Sharma, a retired CRPF constable from Rajasthan, and Shiv Ram Singh, who is currently posted in Raipur as a CRPF head constable. An assistant sub-inspector in Delhi Police, Vikas, was also among those arrested, the police said.
What followed were a series of questions by the curious cops, which led to evasive answers, a trail to the hotel in Sector 71 and the eventual arrest of a group of 18 people, who could be involved in leaking question papers of the Central Teacher Eligibility Test (C-TET), which is conducted by the CBSE.
The accidental arrests, police said, could help unearth one of the biggest exam rackets in recent times. Among the 18 are five possible candidates of C-TET as admit cards were recovered from them. They were in the middle of sharing answer keys when the police team raided the hotel — around 4 in the morning on Thursday. The cops are now trying to find out if the answer keys are indeed of questions that were asked in C-TET, which was conducted across several centres on Thursday.
Police said one of the gang members, who had a pen drive with the answer keys, escaped by the time they started searching the hotel. The alleged kingpin of the racket — a lawyer from Sonipat — is also on the run. The arrests come days after the UP-TET had to be cancelled because of a question paper leak. “Since night curfew is on, a police team deployed in Sector 60 stopped a Maruti Eeco with five men in it. It was around 3.30am. When the car was being searched, the cops found a ladies’ purse. The men were questioned, and they revealed that it belonged to a woman who was staying at a hotel in Sector 71,” said Ranvijay Singh, additional DCP, Noida.
The police team accompanied the five men to the hotel and started a search. There were 13 more persons, all of whom were subsequently arrested. What aroused suspicion among the cops were the 51 admit cards of C-TET that were recovered. The cops are now trying to ascertain the veracity of the documents.
“Apart from 51 admit cards of C-TET scheduled for today (December 30), there were three laptops and 20 cellphones. The 18 persons had five cars in total and Rs 36,000 in cash were recovered from them,” the senior officer said.
A round of questioning revealed that one of the members of the racket, named Ravi, escaped with the pen drive that allegedly contained all the answer keys. “They had gathered in the hotel to share the answer keys. The candidates were to appear in the test scheduled later in the day,” Singh said.
Each candidate is believed to have paid Rs 2.5-3 lakh for the answer keys. Although Noida did not have a centre for C-TET, it was held in Gurgaon, Mathura, Moradabad and several other cities on Thursday morning.
The police are now looking for Vinay Dahiya, the lawyer from Sonipat who had been allegedly running the network for three to four years. The arrest of the remaining gang members is crucial to find out how they managed to procure the question papers and the answer keys, police said.
An initial investigation has revealed that among the arrested are Bhavani Sharma, a retired CRPF constable from Rajasthan, and Shiv Ram Singh, who is currently posted in Raipur as a CRPF head constable. An assistant sub-inspector in Delhi Police, Vikas, was also among those arrested, the police said.
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