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The Mumbai Police Crime Branch on Tuesday claimed to have cracked the Mumbai University (MU) paper leaks and arrested 14 people five students,five peons,two laboratory assistants and two professors with a Karjat-based engineering college. One of the peons works in the manuscript department of the varsity.
MU had approached the Crime Branch,requesting it to probe allegations of engineering paper leaks. Two papers for Basic Electrical and Electronics (BEE) Engineering exam for ATKT students held on May 26 and Applied Physics-II exam for first-year students conducted on May 23 were leaked hours before the examinations. The police also learnt that the Applied Maths-II paper was leaked on May 18.
Along with Unit 8 of the Crime Branch,the Cyber Crime Cell investigated the case as copies of the papers were posted on social networking site Facebook.
Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Himanshu Roy said the arrests were made after the police traced the IP address of the person who posted the papers online and questioned him.
In the BEE paper leak,we nabbed six persons. The accused are professor Milind Lad,professor Shrikant More,lab assistant Vivek Gaikwad,lab assistant Sachin Lad and students Aniruddh Musale and Shadab Raut. We have strong evidence to suggest they were either beneficiaries or part of the leaking process, said Roy.
Milind,who works with Konkan Gyanpeet Engineering College in Karjat,and his accomplice More had approached Gaikwad to help them procure papers. Gaikwad works in another college in Bhivpuri.
Milind also runs a private coaching class. Along with More,he approached Gaikwad to help them procure the paper. They approached Gaikwad as he knew Sachin,who is a lab assistant in the same college as the professors. A chief examiner of the varsity also works in the same college as these professors. From what we have learnt,when Sachin was asked by the chief examiner to scan a copy of the paper she had set,he took a photocopy and gave it to Gaikwad, said Roy.
According to the police,Gaikwad then typed the paper and gave it to Milind. Milind introduced him to second-year student Aniruddh and third-year student Shadab. Investigations revealed they paid almost Rs 5,000 for the papers, said Roy.
The police are also probing the possibility of the chief examiners involvement.
The police also arrested eight persons in connection with the May 23 leak of the Applied Physics-II paper. The accused are peons Ganesh Jadhav,Bharat Singh,Paresh Tendulkar,Vikas Ujjainwal,Premchand Kamble,and students Gaurav Talekar,Sunil Mohite and Kiran Labde.
We received information that Jadhav had procured the papers for the Applied Physics-II and Applied Maths-II exam. We questioned him and he admitted the crime. He led us to Tendulkar,who in turn admitted approaching Ujjainwal. He confessed to having known Kamble,who said he got in touch with Singh. Singh confessed to having opened the seal of the folder containing the papers and taking it out, said Roy.
The police arrested post-graduate statistics student Talekar for procuring the paper to pass it to his friends. Mohite and Labde were arrested for procuring the papers for themselves.
We have recovered Rs 40,000 in cash and booked the arrested persons under Sections 408 (criminal breach of trust),380 (theft) of the IPC and Sections of the Information Technology Act. The accused were presented in court and have been remanded in police custody till June 8, added Roy.
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