Trail leads to an employee of the sub-treasury in Kadur, Chikmagalur, where the question papers were kept for safe-keeping.
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) sleuths have cracked the PUC question paper leak case with the arrest of eight persons, including the kingpin Munavar Basha, 44, who paid `1.5 lakh to an employee of the sub-treasury in Kadur, Chikmagalur, where the question papers were kept for safe-keeping.
T Sonnappa, a 37-year-old assistant teacher at Government Primary School in Dodda Kurubarahalli, Devanahalli taluk, and resident of Ambedkar Nagar near Whitefield, received the question papers from Basha. He brought them to Bangalore.
The other five accused — T Ravi Kumar, 28, of Holalkere in Chitradurga district, Shashidhar, 28, of Tarikere in Chikmagalur district, Anil Rahuth DS, 27, of Bhadravathi in Shimoga district, G Prahlad, 49, an owner of Youth Group Security Service, Tarikere in Chikmagalur district, and CP Ramesh, 42, of KR Puram and lecturer at Sea College in KR Puram — distributed the papers from Kadur to Shimoga, Bhadravathi, Kolar, Chikkaballapur and the Malnad region.
Another accused, Naveen Kumar alias Puttaswamy, is absconding and the CID and Central Crime Branch (CCB) police have begun a manhunt. Director General of Police (DGP), CID, Roop Kumar Datta, said the question papers (Biology, Mathematics and Physics) were stolen with the help of a treasury employee, Suneel Kumar, a second-division clerk at the Kadur sub-treasury. Basha, an integrated education resource teacher working at the block resource centre of the education department in Kadur, was aware that the question papers would be taken to the Kadur sub-treasury for safe-keeping after being printed. He zeroed in on Kumar to gain access to the question papers.
Basha paid Kumar `1.5 lakh to get the Biology question paper first, and then sent the paper to persons assigned to take them to other districts to gain their confidence about the authenticity of the question paper. That done successfully, Basha procured the Mathematics and Physics question papers. But as the information about the question paper leak was leaked to the media, the gang developed cold feet and dropped their plans to steal more question papers. Also, Basha had initially planned to pay `1.5 lakh for each paper.
“He was planning to leak all the question papers. He was supposed to leak the English, Kannada and Chemistry papers too. But he dropped his plans as the news about the question paper leak was broken by TV news channels,” an officer said.
Datta said that although they have found the route the leaked question papers took to Shimoga and the Malnad region, the sleuths are yet to find out how the papers reached to Kolar and Chikkaballapur.
Datta said the CCB police have already arrested three persons who distributed the question papers in Bangalore, Kolar and Chikballapur. “We are investigating the case in coordination and will nab all those involved in the case,” Datta said. He said the accused would be produced at the JMFC Court in Tarikere on Tuesday.
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