Beneficiaries, families paid Rs 20-30 lakh for SIs’ paper
Then SSB officials, Merit Trac, others involved in conspiracy
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Sept 13: The Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) today carried out raids at 36 locations across six States and Union Territories including residences of former Services Selection Board (SSB) Chairman Khalid Jehangir, Ashok Kumar, ex Controller SSB and Master Vijay Kumar, former Public Relations Officer (PRO) of former Deputy Chief Minister Tara Chand besides number of serving and retired officers/officials of Jammu and Kashmir Police, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), touts, beneficiaries etc. in connection with leakage of Police Sub Inspectors examination in March this year.
This was second round of the CBI raids in leakage of question paper. The first round was completed on August 5 but it was confined to Jammu, Srinagar and Bengaluru.
Today, however, the CBI expanded the searches to six States and Union Territories including Jammu and Srinagar in J&K, Karnal, Mahendergarh and Rewari in Haryana, Gandhidham and Kutch in Gujarat, New Delhi, Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh and Bengaluru in Karnataka.
A total of 36 houses and offices were searched during day-long raids.
In Jammu, searches were conducted in the premises of Khalid Jehangir and Ashok Kumar, then Chairman and Controller SSB, KD Bhagat, DySP District Police Lines (DPL) Jammu, Master Vijay Kumar, a resident of Panjtoot, Akhnoor and former PRO of ex Deputy Chief Minister Tara Chand, Raman Sharma, Selection Grade Constable (SgCt) Armed Police, Kewal Krishan alias Vicky, constable Armed Police, Sunil Pangotra, constable District Police, Amit Kumar Sharma, Pawan Sharma and Sunil Sharma, all constables in CRPF, Jagdish Kumar, teacher and resident of Akhnoor, Suresh Kumar Sharma R/o Kaink Jageer, Akhnoor, tout, Rakesh Kumar R/o Mawa Brahamana, Akhnoor, tout and Thoru Ram and Sons, residents of Khour, Pallanwalla, all touts.
In Bengaluru, raids were conducted at the premises of M/s Merit Trac Services Pvt Ltd, the agency involved in conducting written examination for Sub Inspector in Jammu and Kashmir Police while in Haryana, the premises of those responsible for publication of papers and its subsequent leak were searched. House of Chartered Accountant Ajay Kumar Aron was raided at Rewari in Haryana.
Preliminary investigations by the CBI so far revealed that candidates who had to appear in the Sub Inspectors’ written examination in March this year in Jammu and Kashmir and their families paid Rs 20 to Rs 30 lakh approximately to the accused for accessing the question paper before commencement of the exam.
“In this regard (the leakage of exam), involvement of a gang domiciled in Haryana, certain teachers of Jammu and Kashmir, some serving/retired personnel of CRPF, J&K Police and JKSSB has come to light,” an official statement issued by the CBI after today’s raids, said.
It added that incriminating documents and digital evidences have so far been recovered during searches.
The devices will be scrutinized by the investigating agency to ascertain Call Detail Records (CDRs), other chats etc to establish link among the recruitment agency, publishers of question paper, touts and beneficiaries, the officials said.
The CBI had registered a case on August 3 in connection with Sub Inspectors recruitment scam on the request of Jammu and Kashmir Government against a total of 33 accused including then Medical Officer, BSF Frontier Headquarters Paloura, then Member JKSSB, then Under Secretary and Section Officer of SSB, ex-official of CRPF, ASI of JKP, owner of a coaching centre at Akhnoor, private company based at Bengaluru, some private persons and other unknown persons on the allegations of irregularities in written examination for the posts of Sub Inspectors in Jammu and Kashmir Police conducted by the Services Selection Board on March 27.
Results of the examinations were declared on June 4.
As there were allegations regarding malpractices in the examination, the Jammu and Kashmir Government had constituted an Inquiry Committee headed by Additional Chief Secretary (Home) RK Goyal and comprising then Principal Secretary General Administration Department (GAD) Manoj Dwivedi and Administrative Secretary Law and Justice Achal Sethi.
On the basis of Inquiry Committee report, the Government handed over investigations to the CBI,
It has been detected that the conspiracy was hatched amongst the officials of JKSSB, Bengaluru based private company (M/s Merit Trac Services Pvt Ltd) which was conducting written examinations for the SSB for last nearly six to seven years, beneficiary candidates and others which resulted into gross irregularities in written examination of Sub Inspectors.
It was also found that there was abnormally high percentage of selected candidates from Jammu. Rajouri and Samba districts.
“Violation of rules by JKSSB was found in assigning the task of setting question paper to Bengaluru based private company,” the officials said.
On August 5, the CBI had conducted raids at 33 places in Jammu, Srinagar and Bengaluru.
Those raided on August 5 were three former SSB officials, who have been booked by the CBI, Narayan Dutt, a JKAS officer and then member of the Board, Bishan Dass, then Under Secretary and Anju Raina, then Section Officer.
BSF Medical Officer Dr Karnail Singh, who was posted at BSF Frontier Headquarters at Paloura has also been booked and his residence was searched in first round of the raid.
Others, whose premises were raided on August 5 include Ashok Kumar, an ASI of JKP, Ashwani Kumar, former CRPF official, Avinash Gupta, owner and Akshay Kumar, Manager of EDUMAX Library at Akhnoor, Roshan Bral, a ReT teacher and Sourav Sharma, both brother and son of BJP DDC member from Bhalwal Brahamana, Bushan Bral, who also runs a Library at Bhalwal Brahamana.
Other persons, who have been named in the FIR and whose houses were raided then were Sourav Sharma, Sunil Kumar Verma, Jay Suriya Sharma, Rohit Choudhary, Ravi Kumar, Kapil Sharma, Paras Sharma, Sumit Sharma, Shubham Patyar, Sahil Patyar, Rahul Singh, Mamata Langeh, Rohit Langeh, Rahul Sharma, Dheeraj Sharma, Tarlok Singh, Sachdev Singh, Anshuman Sharma, Aakash Jalotra, Ankita Sharma and Shubam Kala.
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