MU engineering exam racket busted: To avoid suspicion, accused used 15-minute window to steal, return answersheets

Read | Mumbai University engineering exam racket busted, 8 held

“Among the accused, Vaze is the only permanent employee, so he was never checked while entering and exiting the campus. The clerks and four peons had all been hired on a temporary basis and would be frisked,” said sub-inspector Shivshankar Bhosle of Bhandup police
station.

The Bhandup police had on Saturday raided the home of a 22-year-old student, who was acting as an agent between the arrested university employees and students who were allegedly willing to pay for a second chance at filling their answer papers – 92 answer sheets of Applied Maths-I exam, held on May 11, were seized from his home.

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The police have identified seven other such agents who sent hall ticket numbers to the peons and collected the corresponding answer sheets from them before passing them on to the students for a fee ranging between Rs 10,000 and Rs 20,000. “The students filled the answer sheets using textbooks. The only condition was that the papers had to be returned to the university within two days to avoid detection. Students complied because they needed to pass,” said Bhosle.

The police also alleged that the arrested employees were wary of a woman colleague who kept a sharp eye on them.

“The accused told us the campus shuts at 6 pm, but the woman employee, who did not trust them, would leave at 5.45 pm. The accused took advantage of her absence to sneak papers in and out of the Examination House,” said Bhosle.

Following the arrests, a meeting of top university officials was held on Sunday. A copy of the police’s First Information Report was also handed over to university officials to begin proceedings to formally suspend the arrested employees. Maharashtra Governor Ch Vidyasgar Rao has also called for a report from the university into the malpractices.

The police will visit the university campus on Monday to verify the claims the accused have made during questioning. A detailed search of the homes of the agents, a scrutiny of their bank accounts and call data records too would be initiated on Monday, said a senior police officer. The agents will not be named as accused in the case but will be summoned to assist the probe.

“We will be summoning each of the 92 students one by one. But we also need to know how many other people were involved and how many answer sheets are still out there,” the officer said.