Mastermind Nabbed From Bihar; OSSC Question Paper Leaked From Printing Press Outside Odisha

Bhubaneswar: Balasore police have arrested eight persons, including the mastermind of alleged question paper leak of JE (Civil) Main written examination conducted by the Odisha Staff Selection Commission (OSSC).

According to sources, 3 among them are from Bihar and the rest from Odisha. They are currently being questioned at Sahadev Khunta police station. Nine persons from Bihar, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh were earlier arrested from Digha in West Bengal in connection with the case.

Later speaking to the media on Thursday, Balasore SP Sagarika Nath said the question papers were leaked from a printing press located outside the state. “The press helper supplied the question paper to the mastermind, who is a Bihar government employee and working as divisional accountant in Accountant General’s office there. The press helper’s brother was an acquittance of the mastermind and they belonged to the same village. He was communicating with the helper for the past 2 months with the hope to lay his hands on some question papers. He was not targeting OSCC specifically,” she said.

When on July 11 it was confirmed that the question papers were of OSCC, the mastermind contacted his associate in Odisha, Bijendra Kumar, and then the latter reached out to the aspirants here, the SP said.

“After identifying the candidates, the accused took original certification and blank cheques from them. They were planing to give them the question papers on the intervening night of July 15 and July 16. If it matched with that of the written test then the candidates had to pay them half the amount and the remaining after their selection,” she said.

Nath said that the mastermind was previously involved in a similar racket in Delhi and was arrested by Crime Branch there in connection with question paper leak of Inspector and Assistant Sub-Inspector Central Police Organisation Examination 2013-14 conducted by Central Staff Selection Commission. He had then procured the question papers from a printing press at Prayagraj. The group had also leaked question papers of Madhya Pradesh MPPSC exam in 2013-14 and Bihar Public Service Commission in 2022, she said.

The mastermind and the source of leak have been identified as Vishal Kumar Chaurasia (35) and Virendra Singh (53), respectively. Police have seized Rs 1 lakh from Singh which was paid by Chaurasia as advance for leaking the question paper.

The SP ruled out the involvement of OSSC employees in the question paper leak. “Those arrested from Odisha worked as middleman,” she said, adding that further investigation is on and more arrests are likely.

Notably, the OSSC had cancelled the examination for JE (Civil) conducted on July 16 as a part of Combined Technical Services Recruitment Examination 2022 on the basis of a report of the SP regarding leak of the question paper.

The interstate job fraud racket was busted on July 16 with the arrest of  nine persons, including a woman. The accused had reportedly got question papers of some competitive examinations for Group-B and C posts conducted by different government recruiting agencies in the state and Centre. They took more than 80 job aspirants, most of them BTech graduates, to the Digha hotel in several vehicles on July 15 and assured them to give the question papers and land them government jobs in exchange for a huge amount of money ranging from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 15 lakh through cheques.

Police investigation found that some examinees had received the question paper of the JE (Civil) Main written examination conducted on July 16. Later, five police teams were sent outside the state to apprehend the mastermind and others involved.