BTC, PMT papers available for a price

LUCKNOW: In yet another leakage ofcompetitive examination papers, this time it was the pre medical test conductedby Central Board of Secondary Education and entrance test for Basic TeachersCertificate, organised by State Council for Education Research and Training.The examinations were to be held on Sunday all over the state butthe Special Task Force busted the racket late on Saturday night.While the BTC paper, a set of which was procured by this newspaper,was being sold for anything between Rs 25,000 and Rs 50,000 that of CBSE PMT wason sale for Rs 2 to Rs 5 lakh. Forty-six persons were rounded up till late inthe night.Following extensive electronic surveillance, the STFcracked down at City Hotel in Kaiserbagh and nabbed Amit Tyagi and Dr AkshayKumar while another team swooped down at Shalimar Hotel and nabbed Ranveer.The three revealed names of their accomplices Rajesh, Saud Khan andPappu Pandit who were staying at another hotel in the city. During initialinterrogation, Akshay said Ramesh Rana of Bulandshahr was the gang leader, saidSTF senior SP Rajeev Sabarwal, who supervised the investigations.Rana was, however, untraceable till the time of going to the press.Fifteen youths, aspiring to appear in the BTC entrance exam, were also nabbedwhile in quest of the paper. Those arrested admitted that the typed questionpaper was made from the original one leaked by the officials involved inconducting the exams.The accused claimed that they had theirassociates camping in Allahabad, Basti, Pilibhit, Kanpur and Gorakhpur. Policeof these districts have been alerted and raids were being conducted all over thestate to trace them, confirmed SP STF Anand Deo.The set of 149objective questions (out of the total of 150), typed in Hindi and spreading overmore than seven sheets ,have questions like “What is the salary of thePresident� and “What is the quorum of the Lok Sabha� with theanswers neatly ticked. The question paper was recovered from onePandeyji who had bought it for Rs 25,000 from Rana. Unaware of the arrests madeby the STF, aspirants were found buying the leaked papers when STF trapped themred -handed around mid-night.After being deferred twice this year,the entrance examinations of BTC were to be finally held on April 28. Organisedby SCERT, over six lakh candidates were to appear in these examinations all overthe state for 5,700 seats.