Three candidates who scored high marks by fraudulent means and figured in the top 100 in the rank list of the TNPSC Group-IV Services examination and a middleman who provided logistics were arrested by the Crime Branch CID of the Tamil Nadu police on Saturday.
According to agency sources, the candidates, M. Thiruvelmurugan, 31, of Thiruvadanai, R. Rajasekhar, 26, of Panruti and M. Kalosha, 29, of Avadi, and the middleman, T. Venkatraman, 38, of Avadi, were arrested after prima facie offence was established.
Pens seized
Investigators seized pens with evaporating ink that were used by the candidates to write the examination. A few answer scripts were also obtained from the TNPSC.
"We are referring the pens and answer scripts to the cyber forensic laboratory for analysis. It appears that the ink was procured locally," a CB-CID official said.
Review meeting
At a review meeting with the investigating team, Director-General of Police M.S. Jaffar Sait directed that the photograph of the prime suspect, Jayaraj of Anna Nagar in Chennai, be sent to all CB-CID units in the State.
Special teams launched a manhunt to apprehend Jayaraj and a few other brokers who helped in transacting money, preparing answer keys etc.
99 candidates
Police were in the process of collecting the names of all the 99 candidates who paid agents to pass the Group-IV Services examination.
Not ruling out the possibility of more arrests in a day or two, the official said inquiries were still on with the two tahsildars who played a key role in the scam.
Parrying questions on a similar modus operandi in earlier examinations conducted by the TNPSC, he said police had gone in search of a tout who was allegedly involved in fixing candidates for an examination held in 2017, and any further action would be based on his statement.
The Group-IV examination to fill 6,491 vacancies was conducted on September 1, 2019.
As many as 16,29,865 candidates appeared for the exam in 5,575 centres across the State.
