Toppers' muddle 'kingpin' Bachha Rai in police net

The alleged kingpin of the toppers' scandal in Bihar Intermediate examination, Bachha Rai was arrested after he surrendered at Bhagwanpur police station in Vaishali district.

Bachha Rai, who is Secretary-cum Principal of controversy-hit Bishun Rai College, arrived at the Bhagwanpur police station to give himself up from where the police arrested him, Hajipur police sources said.

"We have arrested Bachha Rai," Patna Senior Superintendent of Police Manu Maharaj, who is heading the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on merit muddle in Bihar's +2 examination, told PTI.

Maharaj said the police had been on hot pursuit of the accused and netted him today.

Bachha Rai is the Secretary-cum Principal of Bishun Rai College in Vaishali district from where Arts and Science toppers Ruby Rai and Saurabh Shrestha belonged to respectively.

"We will interrogate him intensively," Maharaj said.

Bachha Rai, a known supporter of RJD, had been allegedly eluding from police in the case.

Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi had recently alleged that everybody knew that Bachha Rai had worked more than Lalu Prasad to ensure victory of Tejaswi Yadav and Tej Pratap from Raghopur and Mahua seats in Vaishali respectively.

The probe has indicated that Bachha Rai was a key player in the case with the help of Bihar School Examination Board, police said.

Besides Arts and Science toppers, the third ranker in the Science stream Rahul Kumar, whose result has been cancelled by the board along with that of first topper Saurabh Shrestha after a re-test also hailed from the Bishun Rai College.

Bachha Rai's daughter Shalini Rai is one of the named accused in the FIR lodged in the case with Kotwali police station in Patna.

According to investigation, the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) had allegedly hatched the conspiracy to make Shalini Rai a topper in the science stream later on through verification of marks. But, the snowballing controversy derailed the plan and put her and father Bachha Rai in trouble, police said.

Ruby Rai had reportedly described Political science as "Prodikal Science".

During re-test on last Saturday, she had not appeared before the experts team citing "depression".

The BSEB had asked her to appear for re-test on June 11.

Lalkeshwar Prasad Singh who was forced to resign as BSEB Chairman following evidences of his "connivance" in the scandal is absconding.

Meanwhile, the Arts Intermediate topper Ruby Rai did not turn up before an experts team for re-test today following which the Board decided to withhold her result.

"The Board has decided to withhold result of Ruby Rai and has given another chance to her to appear for re-test on June 25," new Chairman of Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) Anand Kishor told PTI.

He said no application came from the candidate (Ruby Rai) for her not coming for authentication test in the Board office today.

The team of experts kept waiting for the topper to put her to a written test and interview her to authenticate the extraordinary marks obtained by her in the +2 exam, but Ruby Rai did not come following which the board took the decision to withhold her result for now.

"Withholding result means the candidate cannot take admission anywhere on the basis of this result till further order," Kishor, who is also Patna Commissioner, said.

Ruby Rai had described Political Science as "Prodikal science" and said it deals with cooking during the media interview on her topping the Arts stream in state's +2 exam.

Rai, a student of Bishun Rai Intermediate college of Vaishali, is named accused in the FIR lodged. She and her family are untraced since than.

Earlier, on June 3, she absented herself from the re-test on health grounds. The BSEB which had conducted re-test of 13 toppers of Arts and Science streams had asked her to appear before experts on June 11.

The BSEB had cancelled results of Science topper Saurabh Shrestha and third ranker in science Rahul Kumar after the experts found them not up to mark on June 3 re-test.