Staff Reporter
ITANAGAR, 6 Jan: In a significant development in the Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) paper leak case, the Special Investigation Cell (SIC) on Thursday arrested six trainee sub-inspectors (civil police), including the top five, from the North East Police Academy, Shillong (Meghalaya), along with an assistant engineer of the PWD, in connection with the scam.
The arrested sub-inspectors have been identified as Kangkeng Garu (Rank 1), Pakjum Gamlin (Rank 2), Jembang Darang (Rank 3), Yon Talom (Rank 4), Kaling Jerang (Rank 5), and Kali Yomcha (Rank 9).
All of them belong to the 2021-22 batch of sub-inspectors (both civil police and IRBn), who were recruited through the APPSC in February 2022.
The arrested AE has been identified as Neki Ratan of the Mebo PWD subdivision in East Siang district.
With these arrests, the total number of people who have been arrested now stands at 46. Thirty-nine of them are government employees.
Addressing a press conference here on Friday evening, SIC SP Anant Mittal informed that the arrests were made based on the revelations made by the brokers and the main accused, Taket Jerang, following sustained interrogation.
The SP further informed that, after taking Taket Jerang into police custody in the second case, it has been found that they used three modus operandi in the entire scam: the selling of question papers (photocopies made before going for print); mains exams (blank answer sheets filled outside the examination centre; and specific answer sheets filled later (for those who failed the exam).
Mittal informed also that the SIC has interrogated all the APPSC members, including its chairman, and visited the strong rooms a couple of times and collected “some significant evidence from the strong room, which have been sent to the forensic science laboratory for an analysis.”
He further informed that the SIC team faced a challenging task in evaluating the value of the local beads (tadok) which were recovered from the arrested accused as part of the valuable assets’ transaction for the question papers.
The SP further informed that “collection of assets and properties of the accused has been initiated and detailed information has been given to Enforcement Department for evaluation.”
Meanwhile, it is reported that the CBI has accepted the state government’s request to investigate the entire case and will be taking over the case from Saturday onwards.
“As demanded by various student organisations and the aspirants for handing over the paper leakage case to the CBI, the government had written to the Centre to let the CBI take over the case. The CBI has accepted it, and now they have lodged FIR and are taking over the entire APPSC paper leakage case from tomorrow onwards,” Mittal said.
“We have submitted all the evidence and documents related to the case to the CBI, and we would be supporting the CBI as and when our assistance is required,” the SP added.