The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Telangana Police probing the Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) question paper leak case continued interrogating four of the accused on Monday, March 27. The accused — Pulidindi Praveen Kumar, Rajashekar Reddy, Lavdyavath Dhakya and Rajeshwar Nayak — were brought to the SIT’s office for questioning on the second day.
A city court had on Saturday sent the four accused to police custody for three days. The SIT officials had grilled the accused on Sunday to extract information about the role of other accused.
This is the second time that the SIT has taken the accused into custody. They were also questioned earlier after the court had sent them to police custody for six days. The SIT, which has already arrested 13 accused, is likely to take a few more suspects into custody to widen the scope of investigation.
Praveen Kumar and Rajashekar Reddy, both employees of TSPSC and key accused in the case, were the first to be arrested. Praveen, who worked as an assistant section officer at TSPSC and Rajashekar Reddy, a network admin at the Commission, had allegedly stolen question papers of some exams from a computer in the confidential section of the Commission and sold it to some of the other accused.
Along with Praveen and Rajashekar, police arrested Praveen's friend Renuka, a teacher and her husband Lavdyavath Dhakya, who took the papers and sold it to others with the help of Kethavath Srinivas, a police constable from Medchal. Kethavath Rajeshwar, Kethavath Neelesh Nayak, Kethavath Rajender Nayak and Pathlavath Gopal Nayak were also arrested in connection with the case on March 13.
Three more accused Shameem, Damera Ramesh Kumar and N Suresh were arrested on March 23. Shameem and Ramesh are employees of TSPSC while Suresh is a former outsourcing employee. The trio had allegedly scored over 100 marks in the Group 1 preliminary exam held in October last year after procuring question papers from the main accused. The SIT has sought custody of the three accused for six days.
Prashant Reddy, brother-in-law of Rajashekar Reddy, was also arrested on March 25. Prashant, a contract employee under the rural employment scheme with the Mandal Panchayat Development Officer in Nawabpet mandal in Mahabubnagar district, is among those suspected to have illegally accessed the Group 1 prelims question paper. Prashant, along with three others, is suspected to have spent Rs 15 lakh to procure the paper. The SIT is also questioning all candidates who attempted the Group 1 preliminary exam and scored 100 and above marks out of a total of 150 marks.