Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Bhopal Crime Branch officials have identified as many as 400 students who were added to the Telegram groups, in which the MP board papers were being circulated. In order to broaden the investigation, officials are all set to summon all such students and question them regarding the paper leak racket, sources in the Bhopal Crime Branch said.
Crime Branch officials said that all the students identified during the investigation belong to various coaching institutes of Bhopal, many of whom shared the papers further on social media and messaging applications, owing to which they may face the music now.
Senior officials of the Crime Branch said that they verified the authenticity of the leaked papers from education department officials, where it turned out that no papers, which were circulated on messaging applications were genuine. They, however, added that almost 70 per cent of the questions asked in the main paper were from the ones circulated in telegram groups.
The officials continued by saying that three accused in connection with the paper leak case have been arrested from Bhopal, while 20 others have been nabbed from various parts of the state, which include districts such as Satna, Rewa, Guna, Shahdol, Morena, Damoh, Gwalior and Singrauli. They said that the Crime Branch of the aforementioned districts is questioning them regarding the paper leak case and the amount that they made away with, by selling question papers to students.
Scepticism still prevails over the decision of Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education (MPBSE) to conduct the exams again for Class 10 and 12 students due to numerous goof-ups, crime branch sleuths told Free Press after holding discussions with MPBSE officials.
Eight FIRs lodged across state: ACP (cyber crime)
Assistant commissioner of police (ACP, cyber crime), Sujeet Tiwari said that as many as eight FIRs have been lodged across the state pertaining to MP Board paper leak cases. He added that following numerous cases of paper leak amidst MP board exams 2023, 15 teams of district administration, such as officials of tribal welfare department, horticulture department and other departments will keep an eye on the malpractices prevailing at exam centres such as cheating, copying, use of unfair means and paper leak.
