Balasore: The Balasore Police on Thursday arrested another eight persons including the mastermind in the Odisha Staff Selection Commission (OSSC) question paper leak case.
Briefing Media persons here, SP Sagarika Nath said till now 17 persons including the mastermind were arrested in this case. Investigation is still going on and further arrests will be made in coming days, she said.
Notably, the question paper of the main written examination for recruitment of 1008 JE (Civil) Group-B posts, which was conducted on July 16, 2023, was leaked. Following this, the OSSC has cancelled the main written test conducted for the post and decided to conduct a fresh exam on September 3, 2023.
“We able to find out the source from where the question paper was leaked and arrested the mastermind behind the crime. The question paper was leaked from the printing press, where the question paper was printed,” said the SP.
A worker of the printing press has handed over the question paper to the mastermind, who intimated his close associates in Bihar about the question paper and then distributed it among some candidates in Odisha.
The question paper was leaked by Virendra Singh @ Paswan, one of the workers of the printing press. Virendra, who originally hails from Bihar & is working as a helper in a printing press situated outside Odisha, which was being used by OSSC for printing the question papers. He came in contact with the mastermind Vishal Kumar Chaurasia, who belongs to the same place as Virendra Singh’s brother.
Telephonic communication establishes that Virendra and Vishal have known each other for the last 2 months, during which Vishal proposed to Virendra to supply him with any relevant information regarding the question papers being printed at his printing press.
On July 11, 2023, when Vishal received confirmation that the question paper related to JE (Mains) Civils examination to be conducted by OSSC on July 16, 2023 is available, he contacted Bijendra Kumar (his main associate), who has already been apprehended from the spot on July 16, while distributing the question papers.
The main associate of Vishal Kumar, namely Bijendra Kumar was previously arrested in the case of question paper leak of Madhya Pradesh Public Service Commission (MPPSC) in the year 2013-14 and Bihar Public Service Commission in the year 2022. Some of his other associates, who have been identified, including the arrested Raj Kumar and Siddique were also involved in similar cases.
The mastermind of this crime, Vishal Kumar got selected into the Comptroller and Auditor General services through the Central Staff Selection Commission’s (SSC) Combined Graduate Level (CGL) Examination of 2013. He joined as a divisional accountant in the accountant general’s office, Patna in the year 2016.
Prior to this job, he was in the post of tax assistant in income tax department, Durgapur, West Bengal from mid-2014 to 2016.
The modus operandi of the racket is trying to get their hands on the question paper after the final copy is printed and before it is sent to the respective examination centres by the printing press. They then take away the original certificates of the candidates and provide them with the leaked question paper. After the exams were over, if the questions matched, the candidates were asked to pay half the amount instantly and the other half after the results are declared.
However, in this case, the initial investigation revealed that there was no transaction between the accused and the candidates, as at the time of the raid the examination was not conducted, the police said.