As the final examination of the recruitment got delayed by 3 hours (scheduled at 10 am; started at 1pm) for reasons only known to army officials, CBI conducted raids at two places on Sunday during the nationwide army recruitment drive after over suspicion of malpractices including leaking of question papers.
The CBI received information that answers and questions were being leaked to candidates through SMS which is why the CBI officials checked mobile phones of 1400 candidates, at the exam venue (Institute of Science, Nagpur) to determine the value of the tip given to them.
This leak of questions paper came to forefront and was registered as an offense by CBI Nagpur which also bought several army officials under the scanner of the CBI.
With the promise getting through the recruitment process, the institute named “Tango Charlie” allegedly asked candidates to give 1.5 lakh. The action was after getting information about a Katol-based private grooming centre for army recruitment.
Roshan Tidke along with the owner of “Tango Charlie”have been booked by the CBI. The raids were being onducted by teams of PI Pradeep Lande and Hanumant Jangid, under supervision of CBI SP Sandeep Tamgadge. At the written examination centre, six candidates were found possessing mobile phones with SMSes from racketeers mentioning answers to some multiple choice questions and aroudn1400 candidates were appearing for the examination.
Sources have claimed that it was the private institutes who approached these candidates who had cleared the initial rounds and asked to help them out with the final examination for a sum of money. However, the CBI has said that this might have happened with insider help.
Under the undercover operation conducted by CBI, it was seen that the managers were rolling out these services of giving question papers, messaging answers etc and the CBI also got original documents of many candidates.
"It is a grave offence that elements are actively trying to infiltrate the army recruitment. CBI collected adequate evidence before initiating the action," said Tamgadge. The CBI officer was also in touch with army officials when the raid was initiated.
Wing Commander Samir Gangakhedkar, defence public relations officer, said that the Army recruitment office is extending full cooperation to the CBI investigations.
The TOI correspondent who went with the CBI for the raid encountered that candidates were made to sit alongside the roads to give their paper and before that they were made to sit under the moonlight while the army official checked their credentials.
