After confirmation of the leak, the exam for which the paper was set -- Inter-level combined competitive examination of Bihar Staff Selection Commission (BSSC) for recruitment to 9,600 government jobs -- was cancelled by the state government.
More skeletons have tumbled out after the preliminary investigation of the Bihar paper leak scam and police sources said it might turn out to be no less than Madhya Pradesh's Vyapam scandal with thousands of candidates being involved in the racket whose links extend outside Bihar.
After confirmation of the leak, the exam for which the paper was set -- Inter-level combined competitive examination of Bihar Staff Selection Commission (BSSC) for recruitment to 9,600 government jobs -- was cancelled by the state government.
At least six persons have been arrested on Thursday besides Wednesday's arrest of BSSC secretary Paremeshwar Ram and the network of the paper leak and job racket is too huge, said Patna SSP Manu Maharaaj, who is also heading the probe team. "We know that nine lakh candidates wrote the paper (in the first two phases -- total 18.5 lakh had registered for it). The kind of network required to reach out to so many of them itself indicates how many people must be involved in it at different levels," he said.
Patna zone IG NH Khan said teams will shortly be sent to other states for investigation.
Sharing some of the probe findings with the media, Maharaaj said, "Each students paid Rs 6-7 lakh to the setters. The names and roll numbers of at least 200 students have already been found in the mobile phones of those arrested and the figures are likely to increase."
Among those arrested on Thursday are the heads of a coaching institute (Ramesh Kumar), a school (Ramashish Singh) and a technical institute (Rameshwar Kumar), who used to leak question papers from their centres by clicking photographs on their phone. While Ramashish is accused in earlier scams, Ramesh Kumar has twice failed in both Class X and XII but ran a coaching centre, police said.
Maharaaj said, "They were like nodal officers of the racket and claim that answer papers of all four phases (January 29, February 5, 12 and 19) were already in the market. Several important documents have been seized from them," Maharaaj said. He added that this was just one modus operandi, and there were other gangs involved as well.
The police is now probing links to the scam and other exams conducted by the BSSC have also come under scanner, including a recruitment exam of Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs). This came to notice after incriminating messages about the exam were recovered from arrested BSSC secretary Ram's cellphone. The interview for ANM recruitment commenced on Thursday.
Sources said Ram has also indicated to the involvement of some top politicians and bureaucrats during the investigation.
Meanwhile, teams of Economic Offences Unit have been dispatched to probe the links in various districts, and cyber and forensics cell have been roped in for technical assistance. "The call history of several people are being checked and some have also been put on surveillance," police said.
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