BHOPAL: Teams of Madhya Pradesh Police’s Special Task Force (STF) have been raiding parts of Delhi NCR in search of the alleged kingpin of a multi-layered examination paper leak racket busted in Gwalior recently. STF teams raided various locations across Delhi, including Inderpuri and Rajendra Nagar, besides the office of Deshraj Kishor, the alleged mastermind, in the national capital and his possible hideouts in parts in adjoining Ghaziabad and Noida, but he remains untraceable till date. He has two multi-storied houses in Delhi.
The state police had arrested 50 men in Gwalior on March 31 in connection with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) watchman recruitment exam paper leak just a day before the exam was held in seven cities of MP on April 1. But the arrests have helped the police bust only the last layer of the racket.Those arrested included two middlemen, Harish and Ashutosh, hailing from Bihar, and 48 beneficiary candidates. The beneficiaries had to pay `5 lakh each after clearing the test.But Kishor, who is part of the management of a college in Vijaypur in Sheopur district and possibly of another college in adjoining Datia district too, managed to slip away.
Investigations so far have suggested the possibility of an inter-state racket being involved, with players in Bhopal.Kishor’s presence in Bhopal a day before the exam, even as the STF focused on nabbing the candidates and the middlemen, points towards a strong possibility of the beneficiaries not just being confined to 48 arrested men in Gwalior. There might have been more candidates who might have succeeded in taking the recruitment exam at other centres close to Bhopal, including Indore, Ujjain and Sagar.
“The mastermind of the racket in MP could have been in Bhopal on March 31 evening possibly to coordinate with his local modules to help other beneficiary candidates from across India solve the leaked question paper hours before they took the exam,” said a key source in the STF. “Kishor’s arrest holds the key to making further progress in investigations, as he alone can guide the police to crack the two upper layers of the racket, which could either be in Delhi or Bihar.
The arrest is important as the FCI has to hold the watchman recruitment exam in more states, including Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, and the racket may try to leak the papers in these states also,” said a senior STF official in Bhopal.Investigations so far have shown that 91 out of the 108 questions present in the leaked paper (which the STF seized while it was being solved at a Gwalior hotel by the candidates on March 31) were also there in the original paper, distributed at the exam centers on April 1.
Slippery customer
➊ The kingpin has been identified as Deshraj Kishor. He has two multi-storied houses and an office in Delhi
➋ Two middlemen and 48 candidates had been arrested in Gwalior on March 31 but Kishor was in Bhopal on that day