Ahmad Ashfaque Karim is a tough man with lots of clout in the power corridors. But that could not save him from landing behind the bars on Sunday.

“You damn, SSP. How dare you touch me?” the Katihar Medical College chairman and managing director shouted at Patna SSP Manu Maharaj when the latter visited Karim’s Ashiana-Digha Road house to conduct a raid on Saturday.

Karim started dropping names of a few VIPs and asked the SSP to talk to them over phone before initiating any action against him. Undaunted, Maharaj did not lose his cool. He politely said: “Sir, you do whatever you like. I am just doing my job.” He then showed Karim the search warrant of the court.

Karim had not expected such a reply from the IPS officer as he had strong political links — he even contested the 2010 Assembly elections on an LJP ticket — and was fully aware of limitations of the bureaucracy. However, nothing went right for Karim. On Sunday, LJP spokesman Lalan Kumar Chandrawanshi said: “Karim is not an office-bearer of the party right now.”

Karim, taken into custody on Saturday for allegedly selling question papers of his college’s MBBS entrance examination, was sent to jail along with the medical college’s clerk, Mohammad Tanzim. Both Karim and Tanzim have been booked under different sections of the IPC for cheating and forgery in the examinations and the Arms Act.

The entrance test, scheduled to be held at JD Women’s College in Patna on Sunday, was postponed. D.P. Yadav, a member of a supervisory committee to conduct the exams for admission to private medical colleges, said the decision was taken after the question papers that were seized from Karim’s house on Saturday were found to be the same that were to be handed over to the examinees at the exam centre on Sunday. However, a group of examinees reached the centre and began demonstration before they were pacified by the Shastrinagar police.

Urologist Ajay Kumar, also a member of the committee, said a new date of the examination would be taken at its meeting to be held on Wednesday. “We are going to initiate certain steps to check such irregularities in the entrance examinations at the meeting,” he said.

A police officer said the alleged irregularities in the postgraduate exam of the Katihar Medical College that was held on April 6 would also be investigated. The police found both question papers and answer sheets of the examination, the result of which was declared on May 28, from Karim’s house, he added.

Kumar said the committee had no role in conducting the exam of postgraduate courses of private medical colleges.