CBI carries out searches across six states in NIOS fraud case

New Delhi: The CBI carried out searches at 26 locations across six states at the premises of National Institute of Open Schooling, its former officials and study centres in a case of alleged mal-practices in class Xth and XIIth examinations of 2017 conducted by NIOS in which 1800 candidates are under scanner, officials said on Wednesday.

The searches were spread in the cities of Bhopal, Sehore, Ratlam, Umaria in Madhya Pradesh; Fatehabad, Faridabad in Haryana; Bhubaneswar, Ganjam in Odisha; Guwahati, Kamrup, Lakhimpur in Assam; Gangtok, Sikkim and New Delhi.

The search operation started Tuesday which

continued Wednesday, they said.

During the operation, around 200 items such as hard disk drives, mobile phones and various incriminating documents including admit cards, vouchers, passbooks, mark sheets, cheque books, seals, diaries, answer sheets of

NIOS, payments

received from candidates, fees made to NIOS and & seating plan of examination hall etc., have been

recovered, a CBI Spokesperson said here.

An incriminating document--seating plan of examination centres--was also recovered from a location where it was not meant to be present, he said.