LUCKNOW: Close on the heels of the arrest of at least 26 railway employees in connection with a paper leak scam under the East Central Railway, CBI officials conducted searches at eight locations and recovered Rs 1.17 crore in cash.
The amount was shelled out by the aspirants to get the question paper leaked.
The scam was busted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) during an operation launched on the intervening night of March 3 and 4.
The railway employees arrested in connection with the scam were deployed at Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) Nagar railway station.
Consequent to the scam, the exam has been postponed till further notice.
The handwritten question papers, along with their photocopies, were seized, and these question papers were found to be same as original when matched with the original papers.
A case was registered against a senior divisional electrical engineer (DEE) Sushant Parashar and eight other railway officials along with an unknown candidate, and many unknown persons.
The CBI booked senior DEE Sushant Parashar and other implicated officials under Sections 61(2) (criminal conspiracy), 316(5) (criminal breach of trust), and 318(3) (cheating) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, along with Sections 7, 7A, and 8 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (as amended in 2018).
During the CBI raids at three spots in DDU Nagar, total of 17 candidates were found with photocopies of handwritten question papers. The investigation conducted so far revealed that the accused Senior DEE (Ops) was given the responsibility for setting and preparing the question paper for the said examination.
According to CBI sources, the senior DEE, in his own handwriting, wrote the questions in English and allegedly gave them to one loco pilot who, in turn, got them translated into Hindi and further gave them to an office superintendent (OS).
The said OS allegedly gave the question papers to the candidates through a few other railway employees.
Accused senior DEE (Ops) and other railway employees were held for indulging in collection of money and distribution of question papers. As many as 17 departmental candidates, who are working as loco pilots, allegedly paid money for the question paper and were caught red-handed with the photocopies during the raid on Monday night. All of them were arrested.
As per the FIR lodged by the CBI, large sums of money were collected from candidates by a network of junior railway officers, including NK Verma and RNS Yadav, chief loco inspector Ajeet Singh, assistant loco pilot Anish Kumar, and loco pilots Nityanand Yadav, Krishan Yadav, and Suryanath, all from the DDU railway division.