THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: IN A major breakthrough, the crime branch has recovered the smartphone used to send answers of PSC exam questions to the accused while they were in the examination hall. Sleuths seized the phone from a migrant labourer in Bengaluru late on Friday.
The accused had earlier told the police that they had destroyed the phone.
Crime branch sources said the phone would be subjected to forensic examination. According to officers, they traced the phone to Bengaluru after tracking the IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) number which they got from a mobile phone shop at Palayam in the city.
The migrant labourer, the current owner of the phone, told police that he bought the phone from his friend from Thiruvananthapuram.
Police said Praveen, the sixth accused in the case, was the original owner of the phone. After sending the answers to Sivarenjith and Naseem, Praveen sold the phone to a shop at Palayam.
“Naseem had sent the picture of the question paper via WhatsApp to Praveen. After cracking the questions, Praveen sent the answers to Naseem with the help of Gokul and Safeer. In between, both sent many messages to each other. We have all these messages,” an officer said.
Praveen, a former student of the University College, surrendered before the court earlier this month. He helped Sivarenjith, Naseem and Pranav to secure top ranks in the PSC exam conducted in 2018 for the recruitment of police constables into the Kerala Armed Police battalions.
Earlier this month, the crime branch registered a separate case of forgery against three civil police officers (CPOs) in connection with the case. Crime branch SI Anoop Krishna is probing the case under the supervision of ADGP (crimes) Tomin J Thachankary.