112 held for alleged Railway Board exams paper leaking racket

In a joint operation by police of three states, an alleged racket involving leaking of Railway Recruitment Board examination papers was busted on Sunday with the arrest of 112 people, including some aspiring candidates, after raids in Jaipur and Bhopal.

Following the arrests, the written test for the post of Assistant Station Master by the RRB, Ajmer scheduled today was postponed and a new date would be announced later, the board's chairman C L Bharti said.

While the arrests were made in Jaipur and Bhopal by the police of the respective states, they were working on a tip-off from Uttar Pradesh Police.

"With the help of Rajasthan SOG and Bhopal Police raids were carried out in Jaipur and Bhopal. While 105 people, including 11 gang members and 94 aspiring candidates were arrested from Jaipur, four operators were nabbed in Bhopal," Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Brij Lal told reporters in Lucknow adding that copies of the relevant question paper were recovered from both the places.

The ADG said a former employee of the North-Eastern Railway was the kingpin of the paper leaking racket.

Lal said "Bediram, who was a travelling ticket examiner in NE Railway, is the mastermind. In December last year he was arrested from Allahabad by the STF, which busted a similar racket there, and was released on bail recently."

He said after he was nabbed by the STF, the railways terminated Bediram's services.

"We are trying to nab the kingpin, who is at large since being released from jail," he added.

Brij Lal said that in December last year, the STF busted a gang leaking question papers for a railway examination, in which a few aspirants were also arrested.

"Since then the state police was tracking the gang members. Through electronic surveillance, we came to know that they have leaked the question paper of an examination being conducted by RRB Ajmer today," he said.

The ADG said that based on the surveillance inputs two teams of UP STF were constituted to crack the network.

In Jaipur, Kapil Garg, Additional Director General of Police, ATS & SOG, Rajasthan told reporters that the gang used to charge Rs 4 lakh per candidate.

They used to tell aspiring candidates to initially pay Rs 1,000 and submit their original documents including mark sheets and certificates as collateral security before the examination.

Aspiring candidates would then have to pay a second instalment of Rs 50,000 after they had been able to match the leaked question paper with the actual one and final payment of the balance amount had to be paid on their selection, Garg said.

He said around Rs 80,000 were recovered from the gang members during the raids.

All the arrested persons are in Rajasthan SOG custody here and investigation in the matter is on after registering an FIR, he said.

While students slated to appear at Ajmer centre were called at Jaipur and Bikaner, those with Kota as their examination centre were asked to assemble in Bhopal.

Of 94 aspirants arrested from a motel in Jaipur, as many as 82 were from Bihar.

"As the gang is based in Bihar, majority of the aspirants are from that state," Garg said.