shimla: Faced with serious embarrassment in the election year, the Himachal Pradesh government on Tuesday decided to hand-over a probe into the Police Constables recruitment paper leak scam to the Central Bureau of Investigations.
Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, who also holds the home portfolio, said the Special Investigation Team (SIT) set-up by the government has made a major breakthrough in the case and has also arrested the master-mind of the entire scam from Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) on Monday.
His name is Shiv Bahadur Singh apart from another key man - Aman Singh,who hails from Bihar, has also been arrested.
In all 73 persons, 10 of these from different states have been arrested besides several candidates. Atleast two father-son duo have also been arrested.
"Since the scam, initially assumed to be confined to the state have gone beyond the boundaries of the state. Thus, the government has taken a conscious decision to hand over the investigations to the CBI, which is better equipped to handle such cases having network of criminals spread in different states," Thakur said at his official residence.
Asked about the suspected involvement of few police personnel, the Chief Minister said, "It's up to the CBI to frame its contours of investigation and look into all possible aspects about role of different people, including involvement of criminals. Everything will come to light only after the CBI investigation,"
he said.
The Chief Minister recalled that after substantial reports came to his knowledge about possible leak of the paper, he had ordered the registration of the FIR, set-up an SIT headed by a DIG – rank IPS officer Madhusudan and also cancelled the paper to maintain fairness and transparency in the whole matter.
He said Rs 8.49 lakh cash has also been seized from the agent, besides original certificates, a car, 15 mobile phones and a laptop during the investigations by the SIT.
Many arrested people in the case are candidates as well as agents. During the investigations, the police found that most of the candidates top scoring highest marks had paid six to eight lakhs to the agents.