Karnataka Public Service Commission (KPSC) cancelled competitive examinations for First Division Assistant (FDA) scheduled to be held on Sunday after the police found the question papers were leaked. Six persons have been arrested by the Central Crime Branch of police in Bengaluru in this connection.
"We have seized question papers, Rs 24 lakh cash and three stolen vehicles from them," Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime), Bengaluru Sandeep Patil said.
6 accused arrested in connection with FDA question paper leak..exam was scheduled to be held tomorrow.. Rs 24 lakhs cash, question papers seized from accused.. further investigation on.. @CPBlr @BlrCityPolice
— Sandeep Patil IPS (@ips_patil) January 23, 2021
A senior police officer from Central Crime Branch (CCB) said a special team conducted raids in Ullal in Jnanabharathi Police Station limits based on a tip off and the accused were arrested. Two of the accused have been identified as Chandru and Rachappa.
The police added that the gang was using the stolen vehicles to circulate the question papers to job aspirants who had approached them a few days ago and paid some money in advance.
All of them were taken into custody for questioning to ascertain their network and informed the KPSC.
At present the CCB officials are verifying the background of the arrested to ascertain whether they have any connection with Shivakumar, a kingpin of PU question paper leak. He was arrested in 2016 by the Karnataka CID police and in 2018 he was arrested by the CCB police in connection with police constable recruitment question paper leak.
As the news broke, the KPSC immediately announced the cancellation of examinations scheduled on Sunday (January 24).
The KPSC had conducted this examination for 1,112 vacancies for the post of First Division Assistant, out of which 975 are reserved for Residual Parent Cadre (RPC) and 137 for Hyderabad Karnataka Local Cadre (HK) and cumulative about 3.75 lakh job aspirants had applied for these posts across the state.