MEERUT/LUCKNOW: Meerut unit of UP Police STF on Wednesday arrested Ravi Atri, who had orchestrated the UP police constable recruitment exam question paper leak this Feb, from Jewar near Greater Noida and brought him to Meerut. He had been absconding for over a month.
Atri, a resident of a Greater Noida village, is accused of clandestinely photographing exam papers without tampering with seals of boxes stored in a Gujarat-based courier company’s warehouse.The exam, held on Feb 17 and 18, had 43 lakh aspirants vying for 60,000 posts of UP police constables. It was cancelled following the leak.
Since then, 400 arrests have been made across UP and six other states. Twelve FIRs have been registered.
Atri befriended courier co staff, paid ₹20k monthly for alerts on paper arrival: Cops
Atri was booked under IPC sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 120-B (criminal conspiracy), and relevant sections of UP Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act.
The paper leak probe now covers six states – Delhi, MP, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana and UP. In UP, STF has traced the racket to Varanasi, Jhansi, Agra, Kanpur, Bareilly, Ghaziabad, Prayagraj, Meerut, Gorakhpur, Hathras, Noida, and Ballia, and 12 cases have been registered so far.
Providing details about Atri’s arrest, ASP (STF) Brijesh Kumar Singh, said, “Our team received intelligence that the mastermind behind the paper leak, Atri was to arrive at the Jewar-Khurja bus stand in Noida. Based on the input, our team reached there and successfully conducted the arrest.” Revealing Atri’s criminal history, SDG (law and order) Amitabh Yash said, “After completing Class 12 in 2006, Atri moved to Kota.
In 2007, he came in contact with the examination mafia and started appearing as a solver in various competitive examinations. After five years of preparation, he passed the HPMT (Haryana Pre-Medical Test) entrance exam in 2012 and enrolled in PGIMS (Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences) in Rohtak for MBBS. However, he took six years to pass the 3rd-year exam as he was repeatedly arrested and incarcerated in Delhi and Rohtak (in 2012, 2015) for his involvement in leaking several competitive exam papers. In 2018, he dropped out of college.”
How the leak was engineered
Detailing the sequence of events, sources in the STF revealed that Atri had got in touch with Ankit Mishra, who used to train unemployed youths for jobs in transport companies like TCI, Gati, and Blue Dart. Recognising the necessity of having access to someone involved in the transportation of offline exam papers, Atri got Mishra to inform him about the arrival of any competitive exam paper. He also befriended Abhishek Shukla (now in police custody) last year, who a couple of years ago worked at a courier company in Ahmedabad and enticed him into divulging information about the arrival of the papers in the warehouse, for which he paid him a monthly sum of Rs 20,000. Shukla enlisted two employees of the company — Shivam Giri and Rohit Kumar Pandey (both in police custody now) — who informed him on Feb 1 that the box containing the competitive exam papers had arrived. On Feb 3, both Atri and Shukla travelled to Ahmedabad, and Giri sent Atri a picture of the box. Atri then forwarded the picture to his gang member, Rajeev Nayan Mishra, based in Bhopal.
On Feb 5, Mishra also reached Ahmedabad and transferred Rs 3 lakh to Giri’s bank account. That same day, they contacted Patna-based doctor Shubham Mandal (now in police custody), who had expertise in opening the back of the box without breaking the seal. Mandal was paid Rs 2 lakh and provided an air ticket to come to Ahmedabad. That night, Mandal, Giri, and Pandey entered the company’s warehouse and captured images of the Code 2 question paper.
On Feb 8, a similar operation was carried out for the Code 1 paper. Soon, the papers reached the gang handlers in Manesar (Haryana), Baghpat (UP), Delhi and Rewa (MP). Hundreds of aspirants were coerced into memorising the answers in resorts in Rewa and Manesar just a day before the examination.
Delhi-based constable Vikram Pahal played a major role in arranging candidates and buses to the Manesar-based resort. He is currently evading arrest along with Ankit Mishra and a few other accomplices.
Atri, a resident of a Greater Noida village, is accused of clandestinely photographing exam papers without tampering with seals of boxes stored in a Gujarat-based courier company’s warehouse.The exam, held on Feb 17 and 18, had 43 lakh aspirants vying for 60,000 posts of UP police constables. It was cancelled following the leak.
Since then, 400 arrests have been made across UP and six other states. Twelve FIRs have been registered.
Atri befriended courier co staff, paid ₹20k monthly for alerts on paper arrival: Cops
Atri was booked under IPC sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 120-B (criminal conspiracy), and relevant sections of UP Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act.
The paper leak probe now covers six states – Delhi, MP, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana and UP. In UP, STF has traced the racket to Varanasi, Jhansi, Agra, Kanpur, Bareilly, Ghaziabad, Prayagraj, Meerut, Gorakhpur, Hathras, Noida, and Ballia, and 12 cases have been registered so far.
Providing details about Atri’s arrest, ASP (STF) Brijesh Kumar Singh, said, “Our team received intelligence that the mastermind behind the paper leak, Atri was to arrive at the Jewar-Khurja bus stand in Noida. Based on the input, our team reached there and successfully conducted the arrest.” Revealing Atri’s criminal history, SDG (law and order) Amitabh Yash said, “After completing Class 12 in 2006, Atri moved to Kota.
In 2007, he came in contact with the examination mafia and started appearing as a solver in various competitive examinations. After five years of preparation, he passed the HPMT (Haryana Pre-Medical Test) entrance exam in 2012 and enrolled in PGIMS (Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences) in Rohtak for MBBS. However, he took six years to pass the 3rd-year exam as he was repeatedly arrested and incarcerated in Delhi and Rohtak (in 2012, 2015) for his involvement in leaking several competitive exam papers. In 2018, he dropped out of college.”
How the leak was engineered
Detailing the sequence of events, sources in the STF revealed that Atri had got in touch with Ankit Mishra, who used to train unemployed youths for jobs in transport companies like TCI, Gati, and Blue Dart. Recognising the necessity of having access to someone involved in the transportation of offline exam papers, Atri got Mishra to inform him about the arrival of any competitive exam paper. He also befriended Abhishek Shukla (now in police custody) last year, who a couple of years ago worked at a courier company in Ahmedabad and enticed him into divulging information about the arrival of the papers in the warehouse, for which he paid him a monthly sum of Rs 20,000. Shukla enlisted two employees of the company — Shivam Giri and Rohit Kumar Pandey (both in police custody now) — who informed him on Feb 1 that the box containing the competitive exam papers had arrived. On Feb 3, both Atri and Shukla travelled to Ahmedabad, and Giri sent Atri a picture of the box. Atri then forwarded the picture to his gang member, Rajeev Nayan Mishra, based in Bhopal.
On Feb 5, Mishra also reached Ahmedabad and transferred Rs 3 lakh to Giri’s bank account. That same day, they contacted Patna-based doctor Shubham Mandal (now in police custody), who had expertise in opening the back of the box without breaking the seal. Mandal was paid Rs 2 lakh and provided an air ticket to come to Ahmedabad. That night, Mandal, Giri, and Pandey entered the company’s warehouse and captured images of the Code 2 question paper.
On Feb 8, a similar operation was carried out for the Code 1 paper. Soon, the papers reached the gang handlers in Manesar (Haryana), Baghpat (UP), Delhi and Rewa (MP). Hundreds of aspirants were coerced into memorising the answers in resorts in Rewa and Manesar just a day before the examination.
Delhi-based constable Vikram Pahal played a major role in arranging candidates and buses to the Manesar-based resort. He is currently evading arrest along with Ankit Mishra and a few other accomplices.