DEHRADUN: In its ongoing probe in last year's Uttarakhand State Subordinate Service Commission (USSSC) question paper leak case, where at least 15 students were allegedly sold test papers for Rs 15 lakh each, the state special task force (STF) picked up a 37-year-old staffer of a Lucknow-based printing press from Dehradun on Wednesday.
Police said the arrested man, Abhishek Verma, "leaked three sets of question papers of the graduate-level recruitment exam which was printed in Lucknow". Verma allegedly received Rs 36 lakh from the main accused for the "job". The cops had earlier arrested six accused on Sunday, including the main accused Manoj Joshi, a former class 4 staffer at USSSC, and Jayajeet Das, a technical staffer at USSSC.
STF SSP, Ajay Singh, said that a police team had gone to Lucknow following a tip-off. "The team found that while working at the printing press, he had leaked three different sets of the question paper to the accused and was given Rs 36 lakh. He had shared the paper via Telegram app. His salary at the printing press was around Rs 21,000. During interrogation, he confessed to taking the money and spending it on renovating his family home as well as buying a new car worth Rs 9 lakh," Singh added. The STF, meanwhile, got a three-day police remand of the two key accused, Joshi and Das, from the local court.
The recruitment exam was held across the state on December 4 and 5 last year, to fill in 916 graduate-level vacancies for various government departments. Around 1.60 lakh aspirants had appeared for the exam.
