Karnataka police exam scam: Govt engineer who provided Bluetooth expertise among wanted suspects

Malekundi was on April 5 named by the Bengaluru police as the second accused in a case of cheating where a Bluetooth device was used during a Karnataka Public Service Commission examination held on December 14, 2021 to recruit assistant engineers for the Public Works Department.

He is alleged to have played a central role in facilitating large-scale cheating in the sub-inspector exam as well. He was allegedly part of a mafia operated by RD Patil, 38, a contractor and Congress functionary from Kalaburagi’s Afzalpur region.

Malekundi and Patil were jointly linked in December 2021 to a scam in the PWD engineer examination but Patil was not named in the chargesheet by the Annapoorneshwari Nagar police.

The fraud was discovered by the headmistress of St Ann’s School in west Bengaluru when she and an invigilator found a candidate, Veeranna Gowda, “talking in a low voice” during the engineer exam. It was then found that the candidate had a Bluetooth transmitter with him and was discussing the questions with an associate outside.

After his arrest, Gwoda told the police the malpractice had been facilitated by Patil with help from Malekundi.

In the sub-inspector examination, fraudsters allegedly connived with the former BJP women’s wing president in Kalaburagi, Divya Hagaragi, 41, and her husband Rajesh Hagaragi, 49, to facilitate large-scale cheating at Kalaburgai’s Jnana Jyothi English School—operated by the Hagaragi couple.

Malekundi; Divya, principal of the school; Kashinath H, headmaster of the school; and two teachers of the school, Archana S and Sunanda S, have been missing since the investigation started.

The CID inquiry has so far led to the arrest of Patil, the alleged kingpin of the scam; seven candidates who took the exam at Jnana Jyothi School; three teachers at the school who were invigilators for the exam; and Rajesh, president of Jnana Jyothi School.

Twenty-two successful candidates of the nearly 500 who took the exam in Kalaburagi did so at Jnana Jyothi School. On Wednesday the government ordered the transfer of Amrit Paul, additional director-general of police and chairman of the sub-inspector recruitment committee, in what is seen as a fallout of the scam.