CID confirms EAMCET question paper leak, 3 taken into custody

Hyderabad: Telangana CID today confirmed that the question paper of the Medical EAMCET-II was leaked prior to the exam and took three persons into custody in this connection.

“Yes … Three people have been taken into custody. They are being questioned. The trio came together, took out the (question) paper and trained (some) students, who appeared for the exams and they got more marks,” a senior CID officer told PTI.

“It has been established that the paper was leaked prior to the exam, but we don’t know where it has been,” the officer added.

On July 25, the CID had registered a case under relevant sections of IPC and other provisions of Andhra Pradesh Public Examinations (Prevention of Malpractices and Unfair means) Act, 1997, after it found in its preliminary inquiry that there was prima facie a case for registering an FIR.

One of the persons taken into custody is an accused, who was arrested in 2014 in connection with the irregularities in the PG medical entrance test conducted by Vijayawada-based Dr NTR University of Health Sciences in March that year.

Andhra Pradesh Police in March 2014 had arrested several persons, including brokers and students, in connection with irregularities in the post-graduate medical entrance test, even as investigations into “irregularities” in the entrance test had established leakage of question papers.

The Engineering, Agriculture and Medical Common Entrance Test (EAMCET-II) was conducted on July 9 and the results were declared on July 14. The examination was conducted by Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU), Hyderabad.

Following media reports about the leak of the question paper ahead of the examination, the JNTU officials had requested Telangana DGP Anurag Sharma to look into the issue, who ordered a preliminary inquiry by CID on July 20.

According to reports, few candidates, who got a rank in thousands in Andhra Pradesh EAMCET, had got a rank below 500 in Telangana EAMCET-II.

Following reports of EAMCET-II paper leak, students and parents said those few students who indulged in cheating should be punished. The other students who appeared for the exams under stress as they had to write the same exam twice besides appearing for National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), they had argued.

PTI