UP exam scandal: Police expose detailed paper leak operation

Lucknow: In the midst of the ongoing controversy over the alleged NEET medical entrance exam paper leak, police investigations have uncovered a detailed conspiracy behind another exam leak. The qualifying exams for Review Officer/Assistant Review Officer posts in Uttar Pradesh, held on February 11, were canceled following allegations of a paper leak. Initially, when rumors of the question paper being leaked emerged, officials vehemently denied any misconduct. "There was no paper leak. I completely refute it. There was negligence on behalf of the center invigilator who opened a bundle of exam question paper in the control room instead of the examination hall," stated Ghazipur District Magistrate Aryaka Akhauri. However, four months later, the investigation revealed otherwise, exposing a meticulous scheme partially orchestrated at a printing press in Bhopal, nearly 950 km away. Over 10 lakh students had taken the examination, which was subsequently canceled.

The Investigation

The probe revealed that the exam paper leak occurred at the Bishop Johnson Girl's High School and College in Prayagraj. The Special Task Force later discovered that the paper was also leaked from a printing press. The key figures in the leak were four engineers: Rajiv Nayan Mishra, Sunil Raghuvanshi, Vishal Dubey, and Subhash Prakash. The second leak at the school took place just hours before the exam. Arpit Vineet Yashwant, who was in charge of overseeing the examination, took pictures of the question paper at 6:30 am on the exam day. Five individuals, including Arpit, have been arrested in connection with this case.

Leak from the Printing Press

The initial leak occurred at a Bhopal printing press where the exam paper was printed. Rajiv Nayan Mishra, a key figure in the UP police exam paper leak, conspired with a printing press employee, Sunil Raghuvanshi, and engineers Vishal Dubey and Subhash Prakash. Rajiv Nayan Mishra met Sunil Raghuvanshi through Vishal Dubey. Sunil and Vishal were college classmates. While Sunil worked at the printing press, Vishal and Subhash facilitated student admissions into engineering colleges. Upon discovering that his classmate worked at the printing press, Vishal informed Rajiv Mishra. They bribed Sunil into providing them the question paper in exchange for money. When the RO/ARO question paper arrived at the printing press, Sunil demanded ₹10 lakh to give access to the paper, with the condition that candidates would read the paper in front of him to prevent it from going viral. Rajiv Mishra, Sunil Raghuvanshi, and Subhash Prakash agreed.

Engineers' Role in the Leak

Investigating officer Amit Srivastava, from the Varanasi unit of the Special Task Force, explained, "All of them were engineers, they were smart and technically very sound. They meticulously planned the paper leak." Vishal Dubey instructed Sunil to identify the RO/ARO paper by looking for two sets of papers with 140 and 40 questions, respectively, which also included questions on UP. On February 3, Sunil was at the printing press for machine repairs. He spotted the question paper, took it along with a machine part, pretending he was fixing it, and took the papers home. The group decided to show the paper to candidates at Hotel Komal on February 8 for ₹12 lakh each. Sunil brought six copies of the question papers to the hotel. Subhash Prakash solved the paper with a helper while the students memorized the answers. Two accomplices, Vivek Upadhyay and Amarjeet Sharma, brought the candidates to the hotel. Vivek was from Uttar Pradesh and Amarjeet from Bihar, acting as agents to arrange the candidates.

Subhash Prakash was also a candidate for the RO/ARO exam. The police found question papers on his phone with serial numbers identical to those that went viral on social media. Greedy for more money, Rajiv Nayan Mishra shared images of the question paper with Ravi Attri, the mastermind of the UP Police constable paper leak. Consequently, the paper went viral on social media. Rajiv Mishra, the operation's kingpin, had a history of criminal activities. His girlfriend, Shivani, managed the money transactions, according to the police. Six people have been arrested, and investigations are ongoing.

UP Police Constable Exam Leak

A similar operation was orchestrated by Rajiv Mishra and Ravi Attri to leak the UP Police Constable exam, held days after the RO/ARO Exam. An employee of the transportation company helped the masterminds obtain the question papers with a safe-breaking expert from Bihar. Both Ravi Attri and Rajiv Mishra are currently in Meerut Jail. In the UP Police Constable exam, over 47 lakh aspirants appeared for 60,000 job vacancies. The examination was canceled following paper leak allegations.