A young man has been arrested for allegedly selling through a Telegram group what he claimed were question papers for the ongoing higher secondary exams.
Police said they had come across screenshots of a Telegram group in which a
person was offering “question papers” of the HS exams, which started on February 16.
Officers of the Bidhannagar commissionerate’s cyber wing said they received a complaint from Chiranjib Bhattacharjee, president of the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education, on February 18.
Based on that, an FIR was registered and the accused, Rupam Sadhukan, a resident of Nadia district, was arrested on Wednesday.
“A few screenshots of a Telegram group were shared with us, based on which the probe was started. The fraudster had circulated QR codes through which payments for question papers were to be made,” said an officer of the Bidhannagar police.
“We are in the preliminary stage of the investigation. At this stage, it is impossible to say whether the question papers he was selling were genuine or not and if he had access to the original question papers before the commencement of the exams,” he said.
HS council president Bhattacharjee told Metro on Thursday the question papers that were circulated did not match the question papers of any of the subjects whose exams have been held.
“Neither the question papers match the genuine ones nor the QR codes on the question papers that he was selling match the codes on the genuine question papers,” Bhattacharjee said.
This year, the council has printed a unique QR code on every question paper to detect any possible theft or unauthorised circulation of question papers.
In case of any pilferage, the code enables the council to track down the question paper whose photocopies have been made or pictures clicked for unauthorised circulation, council officials said.
The police said the QR code on the papers in circulation on Telegram led them to an account in a nationalised bank owned by a woman who lives in Nadia.
“On contacting the woman, she said one of her friends named Rupam Sadhukan had forcibly snatched her ATM card and that she had received several text messages saying money had been credited to her account. However, as the ATM card was no longer in her possession, she said she had no access to the money,” said the officer.
Sadhukan has been charged under IPC sections on cheating, criminal breach of trust and criminal conspiracy.
