Nine days after sleuths of the Telangana Crime Investigation Department (CID) registered a case over leak of Eamcet-II, the kingpins are still eluding them.
After nearly four days of preliminary probe and nine days of investigation, the investigators could nab six persons connected to the case. None of them is involved directly in bringing out the two sets of question papers from a press in Delhi. The arrested persons — Vishnudhar of Hyderabad and Thirumal of Nalgonda, Arigi Venkata Ramanaiah of Krishna district, Bandaru Ravindra from city, S. Rajagopal Reddy of Anantapur district and Shaik Ramesh of Prakasam district — were on the periphery of the question paper leak plot. Though Reddy was believed to have been the kingpin initially since he had been arrested earlier in similar cases, investigation indicated that in this case he had no idea of the prime accused.
Role of Vishnudhar, Thirumal, Ramesh and Ramanaiah was confined to luring the parents of students aspiring to become medicos. The latter was operating a ‘medical academy’ at L. B. Nagar while Ravindra was in-charge of the mess there. The Telangana Government, in an official statement, said that it was a Delhi-based quartet that had leaked the question papers.
The suspects — Mukul Jain, Mayank Sharma, Suneel Singh and Iqbal — reportedly didn’t come in contact with any of the arrested. “Actually the kingpins got alerted as reports appeared in local print and electronic media about suspicions over leak. That gave ample of time for them to prepare precise escape plans,” a police officer said.
Four to five days after media reports, the Government ordered a probe by the CID. As CID sleuths stumbled upon evidence that the leaked question papers had reached nearly 200 students, it was clear that completion of investigation would take more days. “First, complicity of so many students’ parents had to be established, they had to be traced since a considerable number of them disappeared fearing police action and then initiate penal action like arresting them,” they said.
While arrest would take place sooner or later, the question of how the kingpins knew about the address of the press (which was kept top secret) and how the papers were brought out remains a big mystery.
