The Crime Branch has recovered one of the mobile phones used by two former Students’ Federation of India (SFI) leaders and their associates for “cheating” in a Kerala Public Service Commission (PSC) test for police constables.
A team led by Dy.SP Harikrishnan had traced the phone to a manual labourer from West Bengal employed in Bengaluru.
Officials said the recovery of the material evidence had given a fillip to their case against SFI leaders Nazeem and Shivarenjith.
The prosecution case was that the accused had texted the questions to their friend and fellow activist Praveen.
He shared the questions with a PSC test proficient person, Gokul, a civil police officer, and texted the answers back to the suspects.
The Crime Branch said that the accused had used a combination of smartwatches and mobile phones to cheat in the test in which more than six lakh people had appeared in July.
‘Confession’
Consequently, they emerged first and 28th respectively in the test. Praveen initially told the police that he had lost the phone. Under interrogation, he “confessed” that he sold the phone to a second-hand digital devices dealer. The dealer, in turn, had sold the telephone to an agent of his in Bengaluru. The police tracked the device using its International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) code.
