UP Lekhpal exam: STF arrests 21 people in paper leak racket

In UP, the special task force has arrested 21 people in connection with a paper leak racket of Lekhpal examination. The Lekhpal exam was held between 10:00 a.m. to 12 noon at various centres across the state on Sunday. These arrests were made in different districts of the state including Varanasi, Bareilly, Prayagraj, Lucknow and Kanpur. Arrests includes solvers from Bihar also, who were impersonating the candidate and trying to use electronic devices during the examination. STF says that no paper leak took place as the action was taken before they could leak the paper.

The Lekhpal recruitment mains examination was conducted Sunday at 501 centres in 12 districts of the state in which nearly 2.50 lakh candidates appeared, Uttar Pradesh Subordinate Services Selection Commission Chairman Praveer Kumar said. Kumar said the centres for the single-shift examination were in Ayodhya, Aligarh, Agra, Bareilly, Meerut, Gorakhpur, Prayagraj, Moradabad, Jhansi, Kanpur, Lucknow and Varanasi. “Twenty-one persons hailing from different districts of the state including gang leaders and candidates were arrested on Sunday in connection with the use of unfair means, and deploying solvers, and for taking a handsome amount from candidates,” the Uttar Pradesh STF said in a statement.

It said the first arrests were made form Prayagraj where Narendra Kumar Patel and Sandeep Patel — the latter was allegedly found solving the paper sitting in a car — were nabbed following a tip-off and interrogated. Their information led to further arrests from Kanpur, Lucknow, Moradabad, Varansi, Gonda, and Bareilly. Three more arrests were made from Prayagraj including Vijay Kant Patel, the main accused, and his two aides Dinesh Kumar Yadav and Sonu Kumar, the STF said. Vijay Kant Patel, the STF said, had taken Rs 10 lakh each from seven candidates, and gave them bluetooth devices and earbuds for facilitating cheating during the exam.

 The Samajwadi Party alleged a paper “leak”. Akhilesh Yadav said, the allegations of candidates seem true now that all this is a trick by the BJP government to not complete any example so that people do not get jobs. And the youth works as labourers and peons with the capitalists. Refuting the claims of question paper leak, UPSSSC chairman Praveer Kumar said, “There is nothing as question paper leak, as a question paper leak takes place before the examination. These are individual cases of impersonation.”