OPRB Exam Racket Exposed: Odisha Police arrest 117 over sub-inspector recruitment fraud; SI test postponed

NEW DELHI: A day after postponing the written examination for sub-inspectors, the police in Odisha’s Ganjam district on Wednesday arrested 117 people, including 114 aspirants, on charges of cheating, forgery and fraud, a senior official said. The action came after a crackdown on a racket allegedly involved in sabotaging the upcoming sub-inspector recruitment examination (written) on October 5-6 conducted by the Odisha Police Recruitment Board (OPRB).

Of the 117 arrested, three were agents. “A case has been registered at Golanthara police station under different sections of the BNS and The Odisha Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024,” Berhampur SP Saravana Vivek M told reporters. The Odisha Police in a statement said that following a tip-off about malpractice related to the upcoming exam, a team intercepted three AC sleeper buses near the Andhra Pradesh border.

"On verification, it was found that the three buses had 117 passengers. Among them 114 persons had applied for the upcoming sub-inspector examination . As this appeared suspicious, further enquiry was conducted and it was found that these candidates boarded the three buses at Bhubaneswar, and were travelling to an undisclosed location in Vijayanagaram…” it said.

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“All of them are engaged in an organised crime of sabotaging the upcoming sub-inspector exam,” the statement said, adding, their plan was to get the question paper in Vijayanagaram secretly, and come back to Bhubaneswar to appear for the exam. For this purpose, the aspiring candidates had agreed on a payment of Rs 25 lakh each, in instalments of Rs 10 lakh initially, and Rs 15 lakh finally once the job is confirmed, it said.

The police said that during investigation, it was also found that many more agents are involved in the racket. The OPRB, in a notification on Tuesday, had announced postponement of the SI recruitment examination scheduled for October 5-6. Fresh dates will be announced later, it said. Expressing shock over the development, Leader of Opposition and BJD president Naveen Patnaik described the frequent postponement of the examination as a "systemic failure".