Ruling out the involvement of the officials of the UP Public Service Commission into leakage of preliminary papers for Provincial Civil Services following arrest of three of the accused, state government scrapped the first paper (social studies) here on Monday morning. The cancelled paper will be held on May 10, acording to an official release.
The decision to cancel the paper has been taken on the direction of chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, who summoned senior officials and took first hand account of the development made so far in the matter. The CM have also summoned UPPSC chairman Anil Yadav and other officials to discuss the issue.
“No role of any officer or employee of UPPSC or government was found in the paper leakage,” IG, STF Sujit Pandey informed reporters while revealing the probe so far made by the sleuths of the STF. RsRsWe had already arrested three persons who hatched the plan two days before the PCS examination just to make money,”he added while disclosing the names of Vishal Mehta, Jai Singh and Gyanendra, who were nabbed by the STF team on Sunday evening. The accused had taken photographs of question papers one and a half hours before the examination and circulated it through WhatsApp messenger. He said that Jai Singh, was an invigilator at Adarsh Bharti School in Alamnagar, where Gyanendra, was also a teacher. Jai Singh confessed that Gynendra, who was appearing for PCS exam in Sitapur had facilitated his job as invigilator in the above college with the help of examination controller Vishal Mehta, they got photo of the question paper on their mobile phones. They all joined hands to leak the paper and circulate it through WhatsApp and would collect anything between Rs 1 to 5 lakh per candidate. “It’s not clear as to how many candidates they have sold the papers,” Pandey said. He said that all the three accused would be taken into police custody remand for further interrogation and to extract the names of others who purchased the papers or had leaked to others.
Meanwhile, irate aspirants were holding protests at different places of the state against UPPSC chairman Anil Yadav for the irregularities. A violent protest has also been reported in Allahabad, the headquarters of the UPPSC, with the youths demanding removal of the chairman. They also burnt the effigy of the chairman and damaged couple of Roadways buses.
On Sunday, Director General of Police (DGP) Arvind Kumar Jain had claimed that the morning shift paper had been leaked through WhatsApp and recommended its cancellation. later, UPPSC refuted any leak of the question paper and claimed everything was normal. Jain said that as per the teams working on the case the paper got leaked before 9:30 am when the examination was supposed to start. ‘It went viral after that and may have been misused. STF was put on the job immediately and his report has confirmed this,’ said Jain. The Chief secretary said that matter was being examined and action would be taken after the probe concludes. UPPSC secretary Rizwan-ur-Rehman maintained, ‘Despite rumours, we have not received any reports on question paper leak.’ Around 4.5 lakh aspirants were supposed to appear in 917 centres of 20 districts in the state.
