THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Two main accused in the PSC exam fraud case, whose custody was secured by the Crime Branch, have admitted to their involvement in the crime. The investigators also revealed that the number of accused involved in the crime is likely to increase.
Crime Branch sources said University College SFI leader P P Pranav and his friend Safir, who is a PSC aspirant, revealed their roles in the PSC exam fraud which allegedly helped a couple of SFI leaders of the University College sneak into the rank list of the police constable exam.
The two initially tried to mislead the probe by giving vague answers to the questions posed by the investigators led by DySP Harikrishnan, but later gave in after the sleuths gave a hint of the documents and data they have collected so far which proved their involvement in the case, sources said.
“ They knew they have to talk because we had evidence against them,” said a senior cop.
However, the probe team are taking many statements with a pinch of salt as the duo by all means would have got advice from legal experts on what to say, the officer said.
The Crime Branch had earlier found out that the question paper of the police constable exam was leaked from outside the exam hall in the University College.
The questions were leaked to Safir and Gokul, a police constable, who was arrested earlier. The duo sent the answers as text messages to the mobile phones of A N Nasim, Sivarenjith and Pranav- all three SFI leaders.
DySP Harikrishnan said the efforts are on to retrieve the mobile phones of Pranav and Safir.
“Even if they have destroyed the phones, the data can be retrieved. This is not a technically challenging case. It’s that we have to retrieve a large volume of data from the telecom service operators,” he said.