Ranchi: Chatra police have concluded that at least one student received a copy of the leaked CBSE Class X maths paper via WhatsApp from Bihar the night before the March 28 exam which he forwarded to a local coaching centre where it was solved and then sent back to him and other students.
Chatra SP Akhilesh B Verior told the media on Saturday that they were now trying to probe the actual source of the leak.
"A day before the exam on March 27, one student received the exam paper in Whatsapp from Bihar. It was a handwritten paper. The student forwarded that to coach centre officials that night, who solved the answers and transmitted to him and other students via Whatsapp," the SP said.
He revealed the police were also looking at another aspect of the case, that of cheating by some students who were appearing for the CBSE exams at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya in connivance with the local coaching centre, two directors and one teacher of which had already been arrested.
"The cheating came to light during the science and social science exam. The modus operandi was that a student sent a picture of question papers at the start of the exam to those at the coaching centre using WhatsApp. Teachers at the coaching centre solved them and sent back the answers to the students who saw them in the toilet," Verior said.
So far, police have arrested 12 people, of which nine are students, two of them from Bihar. All of them would be produced before the Juvenile Justice Board to be forwarded to a remand home.
The other three who have been arrested are Pankaj Singh and Satish Pandey, both directors of the coaching centre that goes by the name of Study Vision Centre, and Hamesh, a Maths teacher belonging to the centre.
Local residents claimed that Satish was the local convenor of Akhil Bharatiya Vidharyathi Parishad (ABVP), the RSS students' wing, but Atal Pandey, who is a member of the ABVP national working committee denied it.
"ABVP is a students' body. He (Satish) runs a coaching centre, but he may have been boasting about it (ABVP credentials) on the social media. But we do not have information about it. We will soon publish a formal denial," said Atal, who is also a students representative in the Ranchi University senate.
SP Verior refused comment on Satish's alleged links with the ABVP, but said investigations into the source of the paper leak was continuing.
"The probe was launched on the basis of a complaint lodged by the principal of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Devesh Narayan, at Sadar police station on March 28 after which a special investigation team was formed. All those nabbed were purely on the merit of ongoing investigations."
The FIR filed by police on Thursday initially included names four students - three from DAV School and one from Nazareth School in Chatra. Cases were filed under Section 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 420 (cheating) of IPC and section 66D (cheating by impersonation by using computer resources) under the IT Act.
