A 21-year-old man, allegedly part of a racket involved in cheating higher secondary exam candidates and their guardians by selling purported question papers before the boards, has been arrested in Contai, East Midnapore district.
Bidhannagar police had earlier arrested another man in connection with the case while the HS exams were in progress.
On Tuesday, the police arrested Sheikh Moshayeb Hossain.
“This is the second arrest in connection with the alleged leak of question papers of
the higher secondary exams,” said the joint commissioner (headquarters), Bidhannagar City Police, Badana Varun Chandrasekhar, on Wednesday.
Last month, Bidhannagar police made their first arrest in the case. The accused was Rupam Sadhukan, a resident of Nadia district.
He was allegedly found to be in possession of a SIM card used to open a Telegram group through which purported HS exam question papers were being sold.
The police probe had started following a complaint lodged by Chiranjeeb Bhattacharya, president of the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education, who had reported about the Telegram group through which the racket was allegedly operating.
Bhattacharya had told Metro last month that none of the allegedly leaked HS question papers was genuine.
The police, however, said the investigation was “not yet complete”.
A senior officer of Bidhannagar City Police on Wednesday said the probe was in
progress and it was not possible to divulge more details now.
The racketeers had used fake QR codes on the purported question papers that they were selling to make them
appear “genuine”, said an officer who had access to the seized documents.
The council introduced the QR codes this year to ensure that in case of a question paper leak, the
accused can be tracked down by scanning the unique QR code.
The police had found that Sadhukan had opened a Telegram group and was using it to allegedly cheat students and guardians.
A few bank transactions were made for supplying purported question papers that he allegedly sold as genuine ones.
The police said they had traced the bank account where the money had been deposited by the buyers of the “question papers”.