A total of 159 candidates appearing for the Jharkhand Excise Constable Competitive Examination (JECCE) 2023, along with five others, were arrested on Sunday over an alleged paper leak, a senior official said.
The five main accused are part of a gang involved in irregularities in competitive examinations, he added.
Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission (JSSC) chairman Prashant Kumar said the arrests followed a tip-off to the Ranchi SSP about a large gathering of candidates at a building in Rargaon under Tamar police station limits.
"The students were provided four sets of question papers, which were claimed to be the questions of the JECC examination. The question papers provided in printed and digital formats were seized. Those, however, did not exactly match with the questions asked in the examination today," Kumar told reporters here.
During investigation, it came to light that the accused candidates were brought to the location by agents of the gang, at the rate of Rs 10-Rs 15 lakh per aspirant, to provide them with the exam questions and answers, according to a statement issued by the JSSC.
"These candidates had handed over their mobile phones and admit cards to the gang members to avoid being caught by the police. Some candidates had also issued bank cheques in the names of the gang members," it said.
The main accused has been an active member of the ‘Solver Paper Leak’ gang, it said.
A resident of Jahanabad in Bihar, he has allegedly been involved in several paper leak cases, including the Rajasthan clerk recruitment exam, NEET exam, Bihar community health officers recruitment exam and Uttar Pradesh review and assistant review officers preliminary exam, the release stated.
"Interrogation is underway, while police raids are on to nab others involved in this," the JSSC chairman said.
Meanwhile, the BJP staged demonstrations at some places against Chief Minister Hemant Soren in the wake of the development, claiming that the state government was playing with the future of the youth.
The BJP's Ranchi Mahanagar unit, and those in East and West Singhbhum districts burnt effigies of the CM in protest.
They also demanded that the examination be conducted afresh.
(With inputs from PTI)