Hyderabad: A massive racket involving hi-tech simultaneous copying in at least 10 centres of Railway Recruitment Board Group D exam, that took place across the country yesterday, has been busted with the arrest of 20 members of the gang and 10 candidates caught while copying.
Hyderabad Police is trying to find out the source which leaked out all four sets of question papers to this gang.
There were four sets of question papers A, B, C and D in this exam, and all the four sets were leaked out. Police suspect the involvement of a senior official of Railway Recruitment Board, and/or invigilators at exam centres.
All the four sets of question papers were available on WhatsApp on Sunday, even as 9 lakh candidates were giving their exam.
Railway authorities have not cancelled the exam, but have decided to blacklist those candidates found involved in the copying racket, CPRO, South Central Railway K. Sambasiva Rao said.
The gang had contacts in three states, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal. In Kolkata, railway intelligence staff detained a person for questioning.
The hi-tech copying was carried out by a gang from Malkajgiri in Hyderabad. The kingpin Machhendra, is a junior engineer working in the electrical dept of Railways, said Venkatesh Reddy, inspector, Malkajgiri police station.
Police said, Machhendra had taken Rs 5 lakh each from candidates for helping them in mass copying. The candidates were given special "tahbeez" type electronic devise, which worked as a cellphone on a sim card. The device is connected to a cordless earpiece with the help of Bluetooth.
The candidates were "trained" with the help of these devices a day before the exam and they were asked to buy a new simcard in their own names. This would help the gang members to protect themselves in case the candidate was caught, police said.
As soon as the exam began, the gang members procured all four A, B, C and D sets of question papers on WhatsApp. They took printouts, and a six-member team was ready with its laptop. These six members found out the answers on Google.
The gang members then contacted the candidates sitting in different centres in Hyderabad, Tirupati, Vijayawada and other cities to find out the set of question papers they had. Every candidate was given answers for the questions.
Police have so far identified 10 exam centres where the copying took place. Six of them were in Hyderabad, and two each in Tirupati and Vijaywada.
Two laptops, 8 electronic devices with simcards, 9 earpins with Bluetook device, 27 cellphones, 3 data cards, 3 calculators, one printer and 17 motorbikes were seized.
