CHITTOOR: Continuing the investigation into the alleged SSC question paper leak, Chittoor police on Friday arrested seven more teachers for circulating the ‘Composite Telugu’ paper on WhatsApp on the first day of the board exams.
So far, 10 people have been arrested in connection with the case. They are P Suresh (principal of Sri Krishna Reddy Chaitanya School, Tirupati), K Sudhakar (English lecturer at NRI Academy, Tirupati), Arif (principal of Chaitanya School, Tirupati), Giridhar Reddy (vice-principal of Narayana School, Tirupati), K Mohan (Dean of Chaitanya School, Tirupati) and government teachers at GD Nellore mandal Pavan Kumar Reddy and B Somu.
Disclosing the case details at the police guest house here, Anantapur range DIG Ravi Prakash said based on a complaint lodged by the district education officer, Chittoor, the police launched an investigation and arrested Giridhar Reddy, who confessed that principals and vice-principals of corporate schools took help of government teachers to commit malpractice in the SSC examinations.
“Heads of corporate schools hatched a plan to get question papers from government teacher Pavan Kumar in a bid to to ensure that all their students pass without much difficulty. They also wanted that their students score high so that their schools can get more admissions in the future. They have bribed Rs 10,000-15,000 to Pavan Kumar on many occasions,” the DIG added.
During the investigation, the police found out that the first language question paper was leaked from the examination centre at ZP High School in Nellapalli, GD Nellore mandal, and then it was forwarded to private school teachers through WhatsApp.
“Pavan Kumar took the help of another government teacher B Somu, who was posted on invigilation duty at Nellapalli ZP High School. Somu photographed the question paper and sent it to Pavan, who forwarded it to the corporate school syndicate through WhatsApp,” the DIG revealed. After receiving the question paper, the corporate schools wanted to prepare answers and send them to students with the help of invigilators at the exam centres, the DIG explained.
The arrested persons were booked under Section 5 r/w 8 and 10 of the AP Public Examinations (Prevention of Malpractices and Unfair Means) Act, 1997 and Section 408 of the IPC. It may be noted that the question paper was allegedly leaked and circulated on WhatsApp about two hours after the commencement of the exam on Wednesday.