Telangana police are on the look-out for the kingpins, having stumbled upon evidence that some candidates tried to fraudulently secure top score in the TSSPDCL lineman recruitment test held last Sunday.
While Ghatkesar police of Rachakonda Commissionerate already registered a case of cheating in this connection, Hyderabad Police had picked up some persons on the suspicion of complicity in the matter. Last Sunday, a recruitment test for 1,000 lineman posts was held by the TSSPDCL at different centres in southern districts of the State.
Police got a tip-off that a gang had planned to aid and abet some candidates to secure the posts. “The kingpins in the case had asked the candidates to carry mobile phones inside the exam hall hoodwinking the invigilators,” a police officer associated with the investigation of the case and seeking anonymity said.
Investigators themselves are not yet clear as to how the candidates would be able to use the mobile phone in the exam hall. But one such candidate Shiva Prasad was caught with a base model mobile phone inside the exam hall in Ghatkesar police station area. “A woman Navya is supposed to send me answers or key to the question paper through that mobile phone,” the investigators quoted Prasad as saying.
Prasad’s reported admission made the task of the police only more complex. How would Navya or any other person know answers or secure key without accessing the question paper is the question the investigators are unable to find an answer. More questions like how did Prasad manage to bring the phone inside the exam hall, if anyone at the centre helped him have also cropped up.
The Ghatkesar police registered a case under Section 420 (cheating) read with 511 (common intention) of Indian Penal Code and Section 8 of the Telangana Public Examinations (Prevention of Malpractices and Unfair Means) Act-1997. Meanwhile, a near similar instance was reported at a college in Kothi (another exam centre).
However, for some inexplicable reasons the authorities here preferred not to get registered any specific criminal case here. It is learnt that they decided to treat it as an instance of malpractice. However, special units of Hyderabad Police got a wind that there was more to this incident than met the eye.
They already picked up a man believed to be behind the incident. He is being interrogated.
