CID arrests another topper among women in Karnataka PSI recruitment exam scam

Hundekar is the 53rd candidate to be arrested in the PSI recruitment scam, in which 103 people have been arrested so far. Hundekar obtained 131.25 marks out of 150 in the objective multiple choice question (MCQ) section of the exam and 24/50 marks in the essay.

With Hundekar’s arrest, the CID has now arrested the first-rank winners across all but one category in the PSI recruitment exam scam that began unravelling in April 2022.

The overall first-rank winner Kushal Kumar who got 167.75 marks (137.25 in MCQ and 30.5 in essay), the overall first-rank winner among women Rachana Hanamant (153.25 marks – 128.25 in MCQ and 25 in essay), the first-rank winner among in-service men Gajendra B (155 marks – 126 in MCQ and 29 in essay), the first-rank winner among males for the Kalyana Karnataka region Bhagavantray Jogur (167.375 marks – 129.375 in MCQ and 38 in essay) and the first-rank winner among Kalyana Karnataka in-service candidates Hayyali Desai (138.87 marks – 121.87 in MCQ and 17 in essay) have been arrested.

Three women candidates who gained selection in the in-service category for the Kalyana Karnataka region have remained unscathed in the exam scam.

While Hundekar and Jogur are alleged to have cheated using Bluetooth devices, others allegedly scored high marks after their papers were tampered with at the police recruitment cell or with the help of invigilators in some exam centres in Kalaburagi.

The Karnataka police have used a mathematical probability technique, normally used in banking exams, to weed out more cheats who wrote the PSI recruitment exam that was held on October 3, 2021, to select 545 PSIs from over 54,000 candidates who wrote the written exam at 92 centres in Karnataka.

The CID arrested three PSI exam candidates in October on the basis of running a mathematical probability check on the answers that the selected candidates got wrong in the MCQ section of the exam. The probability check was run as a preliminary level of investigation.

The check revealed that a few candidates marked the same 19 choices wrong for 19 questions they got wrong in the MCQ section of the exam (out of the 100 questions for 150 marks in the exam), confirming a 100 per cent probability of them having received external support to cheat in the exam.

The three arrested candidates who were identified as having given the same 19 wrong answers to 19 questions in the PSI recruitment exam wrote the exam in three separate centres in three separate locations in Karnataka – Bengaluru, Tumkur, and Dharwad.

The cheating probability check was followed up with cell tower data analysis for the usage of cellphones at the examination centres on October 3, 2021, to corroborate findings that the three candidates received external help through Bluetooth devices they took into exam halls.

A civil contractor from Kalaburagi with political connections, R D Patil, is considered to be the kingpin behind the usage of Bluetooth devices by candidates to cheat in the PSI recruitment exam. Patil allegedly set up answering teams at different locations in the state – equipped with the answers to the MCQ part of the exam and linked to the candidates.

Earlier in August this year, the analysis of cell phone usage data from cell towers covering three colleges that served as centres for the PSI recruitment exam in Kalaburagi city unravelled the identities of seven candidates who cheated in the exam by receiving answers for questions through Bluetooth devices they smuggled into the exam halls.

The CID probe has found that candidates who had paid Patil Rs 30 lakh to Rs 80 lakh to be selected as PSIs were provided access to members of the answering team. The answering team members provided answers to the candidates they were paired with via the Bluetooth devices carried by the candidates. Several members of the answering team have been arrested.

The police were able to corroborate the identity of candidates involved in cheating by finding the persons against whose names the SIM cards used for long conversations during the exams – extracted from the cell tower data – were registered.

Out of a total of 545 candidates selected from over 54,000 candidates, a total of 53 candidates have been arrested with 20 candidates found to have cheated by using Bluetooth devices and 33 others through the tampering of their answer scripts by officials of the police recruitment cell itself or staff at examination centres.

An IPS officer of the rank of Additional Director General of Police, Amrit Paul, who headed the police recruitment cell when the scam occurred was arrested by the CID on July 4.