NOIDA: A 47-year-old man who was jailed over links to the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh was arrested from Jhansi on Tuesday for alleged fraud in the just-concluded Uttar Pradesh police recruitment examination, officials said.
Amitabh Rawat, a former teacher who hails from the Morena district of Madhya Pradesh, was arrested by the Noida unit of the UP Police's Special Task Force (STF), they said.
According to the police, Rawat has been involved in arranging proxy candidates, also known as 'solvers', who appeared for various government recruitment examinations in Madhya Pradesh since 2013.
He was arrested in 2017 for fraud related to the Vyapam recruitment examination and lodged in a jail in the Gwalior district of Madhya Pradesh for five years.
However, after an appeal in the high court, he was released on bail in 2020, an Uttar Pradesh police official said.
"Since 2021, Rawat has been involved in fraud in several recruitment examinations in Madhya Pradesh using cheating, including using proxy candidates, bypassing biometric tests, paper leaks and screen sharing (in online exams)," the official said.
"Through his Agra-based associate, who has been identified, Rawat had collected money from several aspirants of the UP Police's constable recruitment exams held on February 17 and 18 on the pretext of providing them question papers before the exam," the official added.
Working on specific inputs, a team of STF Noida under the supervision of Additional SP Rajkumar Mishra and DSP Navendu Kumar, along with the Jhansi Police, nabbed Rawat while he was waiting in his car near the Crafts Fair Ground in Jhansi, police said.
An FIR in connection with this case has been lodged at the Nawabad police station in Jhansi where further legal proceedings are being carried out, the police added.
The Vyapam scam, which came to light in 2013, pertained to the alleged nexus of gangsters, officials and political leaders in the rigging of entrance examinations for the Madhya Pradesh government service and professional courses.
