Gujarat Exam Paper Leak: Two held from Kolkata, number of arrests rises to 19

AHMEDABAD: Two persons allegedly involved in the Gujarat panchayat junior clerk exam paper leak were held from Kolkata in West Bengal and brought here on Friday, taking the total number of arrests in the case to 19, an official said.

The exam, scheduled for January 29, was postponed after the leak came to light following a raid by the Gujarat Anti Terrorist Squad on a computer centre in Vadodara at around 1:30am that day. Fifteen persons were held at the time. As per the ATS, the two, who are natives of Bihar living in Vadodara currently, are kingpins in the case.

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While 15 persons were held during the raid on the computer centre, a staffer of a printing press in Hyderabad in Telangana, which was given the contract by the Gujarat government to print the exam papers, was held soon after. The seventeenth accused was held from Odisha. Most of the accused are engaged in the business of education consultancy, as per police.

"The examination will be conducted afresh at the earliest, for which the board will issue a new advertisement," it said. Gujarat Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi claimed this was the 15th government competitive exam which was cancelled in the last 12 years because of question paper leak. The exam was cancelled hours before it was scheduled.

"The government claims to be taking strict action, but the main culprits have not even been arrested. The government is playing with the future of youth of the state," he alleged. Doshi claimed the exam, for which the first advertisement was issued in 2016, was cancelled for the third time.