THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Kerala Public Service Commission’s vigilance wing has found that a civil police officer helped an SFI leader accused in the police constable examination fraud. The person, identified as Gokul attached to the SAP camp, Peroorkada, is reported to have sent scores of SMSes to P P Pranav, who is among the jailed SFI leaders of University College.
While R Sivarenjith, the first-rank holder in the PSC examination and first accused in the University College stabbing case, received 96 SMSes, Pranav, the second-rank holder and another accused, got 78 messages from three mobile numbers between 2 pm and 3.15pm on July 22, 2018. The SMSes are believed to be answers to examination questions.
One of the numbers was identified as that of Praveen’s friend Gokul, who joined the service in 2017.
The vigilance wing, in association with the cyber police, is investigating the modus operandi of the accused. Officers said they suspect the accused might have used modern gadgets for the fraud.
“A SIM card-supported smartwatch is a possibility. It has the facility to scan and send documents. Since it can’t receive images, the answers could’ve been sent as SMS,” said an investigating officer.
PSC to probe whether more persons committed fraud
T’Puram: The vigilance wing will also investigate whether more persons committed similar fraud. For this, the phone record of the candidates who came in the first 100 in other examinations on the day will be checked. Examinations were conducted for appointment to seven police batallions on the day. Besides, Sivarenjith and Pranav, PSC had removed the name of AN Nazeem from the ranklist.
Nazeem, the 28th-rank holder, is an accused stabbing case. All the three have been debarred from writing PSC exams in future. The PSC will also ask the police to identify the method used by Nazeem to commit the fraud. Unlike Sivarenjith and Pranav, Nazeem did not receive any SMS on his mobile.