IGNOU employee among five arrested for leaking MCA, BCA question papers

Five men, including an employee of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), were arrested for allegedly leaking MCA and BCA third semester question papers from its study centre in Jharkhand's Bokaro, police said on Sunday. The accused were identified as Dev Shankar (31), Vivek Kumar Sharma (27), Johanson Hans (30), residents of Jharkhand, Ankit Saxena (23), a resident of Uttar Pradesh and Mohammad Iqbal (24), a resident of Delhi, they said.

According to police, on December 8, 2018, SG Swami, the registrar of IGNOU, Maidan Garhi in New Delhi had filed a complaint regarding question paper leak. The MCA third semester exam was scheduled to be held on December 8, 2018, at 10 am at centres across the country and also in Nepal.

Swami complained that he received two e-mails from different addresses with images of the question paper attached. In the e-mails it was claimed that the question papers had been leaked a day before the exam, police said. The same day, Swami filed another complainant regarding the leak of IGNOU BCA third semester question paper which was circulated through WhatsApp, they said.

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Around 500 suspects were interrogated. Later, on the basis of technical analysis, the mastermind behind this racket, Dev Shankar, was arrested on Wednesday from IGNOU study centre in Bokaro Steel City, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) A K Singla said.

During questioning, Shankar disclosed that he was working as a peon at the study centre for the past 13 years. Being a trusted employee, he had the keys of the centre, the ACP said, adding the accused used to sell a question papers to  students for Rs 1,500 each and was doing this since June 2016.

He used to enter the centre supervisor's room when the staff left, take photos of question papers after opening the almirah there and send those to his accomplices through WhatsApp, Singla said. His other associates have also been arrested and they are being interrogated, police said.