The paper leak scams are not confined to any particular state in the country and its deeply rooted tentacles stretched across the country. After brouhaha in Telangana, the latest similar rip-off emerged from Uttarakhand state that provides a deep insight into the world of corruption, greed and murky affairs prevailing in educational institutions and coaching centers exploiting the lacunae in the system to make a killing.
According to reports, the Uttarakhand police on Sunday detained people for indulging in leaking question papers and staging an organised cheating during exam using Bluetooth devices. A team of Special Task Force (STF) busted a racket just 12 hours before the recruitment exam being conducted to fill 894 posts of forest guards through setting up 624 centers throughout the state.
The STF team arrested the mastermind Mukesh Soni and his associate Rachit Pundir. The primary investigation reveals that the accused Mukesh Soni runs a Coaching Center in Roorkee city in Uttarakhand while his associate Rachit Pundir serves as an assistant spokesperson in a private college in Haridwar.
According to local police, both the accused were already booked in the past for helping candidates in cheating during the recruitment exams conducted in the year 2020 using bluetooth technology. While Mukesh has three cases of staging organised cheating on his name, Rachit has one similar case on his credit. Apart from this, both of them were booked as gangsters. Though they were arrested in the past, but were later released on bail.
Explaining the modus operandi of the accused Mukesh Soni, the police said the accused often find candidates willing to clear the exam by crook and entrapping them into a cobweb.
The STA investigation reportedly revealed that the accused Rachit Pundir was deployed as an invigilator in an exam center in Roorkee during the recruitment exam for filling up the posts of Forest Guards. His electrician friend Vishal was to ensure proper lighting in the exam center.
The plot was to send the question paper to Mukesh Soni through the Whatsapp accounts of Rachit and Vishal. Mukesh in turn will resolve the paper through the support of other associates and later share the answers to the candidates sitting inside the center using a bluetooth device. However, the whole idea behind the paper leak scam revolves around the role played by the coaching center being run by Mukesh.
According to Jagran Hindi, the MS Coaching Center being run by Mukesh was located in Roorkee where coaching was just a show off while the real business is to make a killing out of leaking question papers during the recruitment exams being held by the government.
Only four years after setting up the institution at Malviya Chowk in the year 2012, the accused Mukesh was caught by the police for the first time in 2016 with a charge of arranging organised cheating during the exam. Later, he was sent to jail on a similar charge in 2019. This is the third time the accused was apprehended by the task force.
