Two held in Bidar over police exam paper leak

A team of Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS), along with Ahmedabad Crime Branch, arrested two persons from Bidar in connection with the Gujarat police recruitment exam question paper leak case.

The arrest of Mahadev Dattatreya Asture and Vinod Bansilal Rathod takes the total number of accused held in the case to 17, police said.

The prime accused in the case are Vinod Chikkara and Virendra Mathur, a 53-year-old veteran state-level weightlifter from Karala village of Delhi, who sold the question paper for Rs 50 lakh,” said Deepan Bhadran, DCP, Ahmedabad Crime Branch.

Interrogation of the accused revealed that a professional gang based in Haryana and Delhi had stolen the question paper from a renowned printing press in Udupi district with the help of local accomplices.

Digital footprints left by the gang led to the arrests, Deepan said. According to police, the gang wanted to access Haryana police recruitment question paper and trailed it to the said printing press. However, after stealing the question paper, they realised that it was the Gujarat police recruitment exam paper scheduled for December 2, 2018.

The main accused had stayed at a lodge opposite the printing press. After a recce of the place and studying the activities of press employees for a couple of days, they solicited the help of local accomplices Mahadev Dattatreya Asture and Vinod Bansilal Rathod.

On the intervening night of November 20 and 21, they reached the printing press in their SUV. They sneaked into the press and secured a copy of a discarded question paper and took a photograph of it as well,” said Deepan.