Bhubaneswar, March 12: The crime branch may have achieved a quick breakthrough in this year’s Plus Two question leak incident by arresting three persons, but they are still in the dark about the theft of matric question papers in March last year.

Last September, Orissa High Court had also expressed concern over the failure of the cops in bringing the culprits to book and had directed them to expedite the investigation and file the final report of the case within 40 days.

Seven months after the incident, they made some headway by booking two employees of the exam centre in Puri where the incident had taken place on March 20. However, the mastermind has not been caught so far even though the cops had announced a reward of Rs 2 lakh for anyone who could provide vital information in this regard.

B.K. Sharma, who assumed responsibility as additional director general of police, crime branch in May, said it has been “a difficult case”. “Immediately after the incident came to light, the matriculation exam was cancelled and rescheduled. That did not allow any scope for the thieves to sell the question papers or capitalise on it in any way like we had anticipated. So, we did not get any clue and the main players are still at large,” he said.

The theft of question papers in seven subjects from Bhagawati Bidyapitha in Kakatpur, Puri, had led to the suspension of the annual exams for over 4.56 lakh regular candidates, which commenced from March 19.

Barring the first paper, Odia, all other exams were rescheduled to be held from April 17 to 26. The cancellation of examinations sparked resentment among students and parents across the state with an examinee committing suicide allegedly because the English exam, which was held a day after the incident, was also rescheduled.

Though the crime branch is still pursuing the case, the hope of getting any more leads is bleak, Sharma said.

“I don’t see a possibility of a detection, as a year has elapsed now. The case is practically over,” Sharma said.