TSPSC leak: Students & doctor in jail for paying kickbacks

HYDERABAD: After filing a preliminary chargesheet against 37 accused, the special investigation team (SIT) arrested 17 more persons, including a registered medical practitioner (RMP) and his tailor-wife from Jangaon and a farmer from Hanumakonda, in the last three days in the TSPSC exam question papers leakage case.
Among the arrested, a majority of them were students who allegedly struck deals with one of the kingpin to pay Rs 15 lakh to Rs 40 lakh.SIT so far has arrested 74 people in connection with the case. Sources said special teams have been asked to locate and apprehend the remaining accused by the end of this week.
According to SIT investigators, the accused agreed to pay the arrested state government engineer, P Ramesh, for illegally obtaining the assistant engineer (civil) exam question paper and resorting to hi-tech malpractice during the divisional accounts oficer (DAO) exam.
RMP B Nagaraju, 36, and his wife B Srilatha, 31, were picked up on July 7-8 along with seven others. SIT investigators said Nagaraju and his wife did not pay money to Ramesh to obtain the question papers.
"Nagaraju knew Ramesh very well and the latter helped Srilatha to resort to malpractice during the DAO exam by providing her bluetooth-enabled micro earphones linked to a cellular device. Answers were provided to her by a team of associates of Ramesh using ChatGPT," said a SIT official.
Among the latest arrests, only M Hari Kishan, a student from Talakondapalli in Rangareddy district, had allegedly paid Rs 10 lakh to Ramesh as advance. "Kishan struck a deal to pay Rs 40 lakh with Ramesh and paid Rs 10 lakh as advance," said a senior SIT official.
All the accused have been booked under sections 381, 409, 411, 420, 120(B) and 201 of the IPC, IT Act and the Telangana Public Examination (Prevention of Malpractices and Unfair Means) Act of 1997.
Since Sunday night, SIT sleuths arrested S Ashok, 33, a private firm employee from Dilsukhnagar, D Kalyan, 26, a student, from Amberpet, B Nagaraju Naik, 27, a student from Alkapuri Colony, T Vijay Kumar, 29, a businessman from Warangal, G Ajay Kumar, 30, an unemployed youth from Warangal, G Sunil, 30, a student from Hanumakonda, K Santosh, 29, a student from Mahbubnagar, and farmer M Ramudu, 26.
The sleuths earlier nabbed B Madhusudhan Rao, 37, a worker from Khammam, P Narendar, 29, a student, from Warangal, M Nagaraju, 25, an unemployed youth from Suryapet, V Sanjeev Kumar, 29, a student of Khammam, M Chandra Sekhar, 26, a student from Palvancha, and D Rajesh, 27, a student from Suryapet, on July 7-8.
Main accused P Praveen Kumar, who was PA to secretary of TSPSC, leaked Group-1 prelims, AE (civil), assistant executive engineer and DAO exams question papers and is still in judicial remand.