U.P. STF charge-sheets 16 in RO/ARO 2023 paper leak
Those charge-sheeted include the mastermind of the paper leak, Rajiv Nayan Mishra and his close aide Subhash Prakash
The special task force on Thursday filed a charge-sheet against 16 people arrested in connection with the Review Officer/Assistant Review Officer (RO/ARO) 2023 question paper leak. Those charge-sheeted include the mastermind of the paper leak, Rajiv Nayan Mishra and his close aide Subhash Prakash.
An FIR was registered in this connection at Civil Lines police station on the complaint of UPPSC officials on March 4 this year, and later, the examination was cancelled. The investigations were handed over to STF Lucknow.
The STF Lucknow busted the gang involved in the RO/ARO paper leak and arrested six more persons including a printing press employee, on June 23. They were identified as Sunil Raghuvanshi of Bhopal, Subhash Prakash of Madhubani, Vishal Dubey , Sandeep Pandey of Prayagraj, Amarjeet Sharma of Gaya and Vivek Upadhyay of Ballia district.
Earlier, the STF team arrested other members of the gang Rajiv Nayan Mishra of Meja area in Prayagraj, Saurabh Shukla of Pratapgarh, Arun Kumar Singh of Pratapgarh, Sharad Patel of Chunar, Amit Singh of Gonda, Arpit Vinit Yashwant of Cantt in Prayagraj, Abhishek Shukla of Lucknow, Kamlesh Kumar Pal of Jhunsi in Prayagraj, Ravi Atri of Gautam Buddh Nagar and Vikram Pahal of Haryana.
STF officials said that besides leaking the question papers from the examination centre at Bishop Johnson Girls Wing, the question papers were also leaked from the printing press where they were printed in Bhopal.
Rajiv Nayan Mishra, Subhash Prakash, Vishal Dubey and printing press employee Sunil Raghuvanshi had studied in private colleges in Bhopal from 2014 to 2017. They planned to earn hefty cash by leaking question papers of different examinations that were printed in the printing press.
Raghuvanshi alerted his aides when question papers of RO/ARO were sent for printing to Bhopal. One question paper contained 140 questions while the other had 40. However, Raghuvanshi demanded ₹10 lakh for leaking the question papers. He also demanded that aspirants should read the question papers in front of him as he did not want them to go viral.
Raghuvanshi stole a copy of question paper on the pretext of repairing the printing machine. As per the plan, the gang members assembled at a hotel on February 8 where aspirants were asked to learn the questions. They were given the question papers in return of cash ₹12 lakh each.
Subhash Prakash who himself had appeared in the RO/ARO examination helped the aspirants solve the question papers. He even clicked photographs of the question papers and sent them to other gang members.
Rajiv Nayan Mishra in a bid to earn more cash sent the question papers to Sharad Patel, Amit Singh, Arun Kumar, Ravi Atri and others following which the question papers went viral on social media platforms.
Some other aides of the accused including Rajiv Nayan’s friend Shivani are still at large.
