BANGALORE: The sleuths of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) have arrested 10 people, including some teachers, in connection with the leak of the second PUC question papers.
The probe revealed that the leaked question papers were stolen from the sub-treasury office in Kadur taluk of Chikmagalur district.
The accused have been identified as H S Sunil Kumar (34) of Kadur and a second division assistant of Kadur sub-treasury, Munavar Basha (44), a resource teacher at Block Resource Centre in Kadur, T Sonnappa (37) of Whitefield and a teacher at Govt Higher Primary School of Doddakurubarahalli of Devanahalli, Siddaramaiah (44) of Baggavalli and a teacher of Kudlur Primary School in Chikmagalur, Yogishwar (36), an advocate who is a native of Hosadurga in Chitradurga and a resident of Peenya II Stage, T Ravikumar alias Ravi (28), a farmer in Holalkere taluk in Chitradurga, Shashidhar (28) of Tarikere taluk in Chikmagalur, Anil Rahut (27) of Bhadravathi who is into water distribution business, G Prahlad (49) of Tarikere who runs a security agency and C P Ramesh (42) of K R Puram in the city and a lecturer in SEA College.
CID DGP Rupak Kumar Datta told reporters that Munavar, Sonnappa and Sunil Kumar were the kingpins of the racket. “Sonnappa had approached Munavar to get the PU question papers before the exams and Munavar, in turn, roped in Sunil to get the job accomplished. The duo had offered Sunil `50,000 per question paper and gave him `1.5 lakh,” he said.
“Sunil, who had the keys of the sub-treasury, used to open the room after office hours and let Munavar in. The latter opened the question paper bundle and took a question paper and got its photocopy while Sunil stood guard,” Datta explained, adding that negligence of office in-charge Veerabhadraiah was also evident.
“First they picked the Biology paper and later Math and Physics papers. Munavar gave the papers to Sonnappa in Kadur and these were circulated through e-mail, fax and in person. They also had plans to leak the Chemistry, Kannada, English and Hindi papers but as the news of the leak appeared in the media, they dropped the plan,” he added.