Cracking the 'leaky' affair

In a case of twists and turns, the police could finally zero in on the persons who were involved in the question paper leakage, writes K. Srinivas Reddy.

IT WAS indeed hot news on the Osmania University campus. The BCA question paper for discrete mathematics leaked. A handwritten copy of the question paper was handed over to the university authorities even before the exam was conducted. The incredulous officials promised an enquiry and waited till the exam commenced and the hand written copy tallied with the question paper distributed.

By the time a decision was taken to lodge a police complaint and to cancel the exam, the students had already taken the test and handed over the answer sheets. The paper leakage was snowballing into a major controversy and the police had a tough investigation ahead. The normal procedure of interrogating whoever is involved in preparation and packing of the question papers was ruled out as that would have led to resentment among the university employees.

The claim that an anonymous person handed over the leaked paper at the ABVP office led the investigators to a state of confusion. Even as the police drew a blank, the authorities conducted the re-exam and then the investigators hit upon a novel idea. If only the university authorities compared the performance of students in the re-exam vis-a-vis the cancelled one. Though the cancelled question papers were not valued, at one go the authorities zeroed in on one particular student who did exceedingly well in the cancelled exam, but almost fared miserably in the re-exam. Could he be the person who managed to get the leaked paper? This lead was worth pursuing.

In no time, the police got the address of the student, Kishore, and rushed to Nizamabad only to find that the address did not exist. Why did he furnish a false address? The police smelt a rat. Within days Kishore was rounded up and he spilled the beans. He along with two others paid Rs. 3,000 to get the leaked paper through one Bhaskar Reddy who was also studying BCA. Bhaskar told the police later that he got it from Manoj and subsequently Manoj was also traced.

The investigation which went without a hitch after the breakthrough came to a grinding halt again when Manoj claimed that some unknown person gave him the paper in Dilsukhnagar. Undeterred, police teams snooped around and finally zeroed in on an Intermediate drop-out, Rajendra Reddy, who was alleged to have given a copy of the question paper to a kirana shop owner who, in turn, passed it on to three students after collecting Rs. 3,000 each.

Though Rajendra could not be traced, police teams managed to close in on Jagadishwar Reddy, who, in turn, informed the police that it was Dharma Nayak who had actually managed to get the question paper out of the examination branch of Osmania University. Nayak, a former students union leader affiliated to the ruling TDP, confessed to his involvement. He had befriended an attender in the examination branch and procured the question paper. Immediately, the attender, Srinivas, was also arrested. Both Srinivas and Nayak are now in judicial custody.

(The case was investigated by Inspector B. Muralidhar of Osmania University police station).

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