Joint efforts a must to nab exam racketeers
Raising major concerns about the credibility of selection procedures of prestigious national institutes, the Kerala police arrested six people from Haryana for cheating in the recruitment exam conducted by the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) in Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday. The Kerala police acted on a tip-off from their Haryana counterparts. The accused were impersonators, writing the exam on behalf of job aspirants. According to the police, they are part of a racket and have organised similar operations for several other national exams.
As many as 20,000 candidates applied for the examination, which was held to select recruits for three technical posts at the VSSC. Of them, 469 were from Haryana. The impersonators, according to the police, used advanced technology and sophisticated equipment to commit the fraud. They reportedly procured ‘exam cheating kits’ online and captured images of question papers using mobile phone cameras that were discreetly attached to their belts. They positioned the question paper directly in front of the camera, relaying the video feed to somebody at an undisclosed location. After analysing the questions, a team of ‘subject experts’ would relay the answers back, which the impersonators would receive through concealed bluetooth earphones. These subject experts, too, according to the police, have received massive amounts for partaking in the racket.
This is not the first time that such a job scam has happened. The allure of a secure government job makes people go to any extent to snag one. This desperation encourages racketeers to organise multi-level operations involving high-precision jobs, including procuring electronic gadgets, arranging imposters and subject experts, and then finding job aspirants who are willing to pay huge amounts and don’t mind being part of the fraud if it lands them a government job. Such rackets abound in several states and are often interconnected. The state governments and Central agencies must join hands in busting them. If not for the timely alert from the Haryana police, the Kerala police would not have been able to smash the racket. Such
coordinated efforts are the need of the hour if the credibility of the selection processes of esteemed national institutions is to remain unsullied.