Priti Pathak
The Crime Branch Unit-8 officials arrested a senior clerk along with two students of the Kalyan based M K Agarwal College in the TYBcom question paper leak matter. The accused were produced in the Metropolitan court where they have been remanded in police custody till 11th of this month.
Among the arrested accused two of them belong to the college staff; Rajendra Shankar Borhade (43) a resident of Shankar Niwas, Koliwada, Thane (West) is the senior clerk and Rajkumar Mishra who happens to be the IT Coordinator in the college. The other two accused namely Vishal Vinod More (21), resident of Bhujbalwadi, Rambaug, Kalyan and Pratik Suresh Mehta (21) is a resident of Jain Society, Near Kaala Talav, Kalyan happen to be students of the college.
On April 5, the Exam Controller of Mumbai University, Dr. Padma Vinay Deshmukh, complained to the Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Sadanand Date that on April 4, just an hour before the exam the Marketing & Human Resource Management paper of TYBcom exam was leaked. The paper was circulated via the widely used messenger application WhatsApp. Date handed over the matter to Cyber Crime Cell and Crime branch Unit – 8 for further investigations. Cyber Crime Cell police registered an FIR under sections 408, 380, 34 of IPC with 4, 5, 6 Maharashtra Prevention of mall practices University Board and other exam act 1982 with 43 (b), 66 Information and Technology act.
The Crime Branch Unit – 8 officials headed by Deepak Phatangre along with the cyber crime cell started a parallel investigation during which they found leads of accused Borhade going to Big Bazaar shopping Mall in Ghodbandar road, Thane. The police set a trap and arrested him.
As per the university rules the question paper is sent to all examination centres 2 hours prior to the exam through internet in an encrypted code. For decrypting the code the IT Coordinator sends a password to all the centres. The related IT coordinator decodes the paper and it is circulated to the papers to the students during exam.
In their statements the accused admitted that before the exam started Mishra printed the question paper and handed it over to Borhade. Later Borhade sold the paper to More in Rs. 3,000 and then police arrested More. During interrogation the police came to know that More had circulated the paper to Mehta using WhatsApp and he charged Rs. 2,000.
At 223 centres nearly 4,000 students took the test. Mumbai University had alerted about the leak of the paper just half an hour before the exam. University sent a question paper to all the centres electronically.
Earlier, the crime branch officials had arrested police constable Uday Kadam and Kandivali School Principal Mangesh Laad for leaking the SSC Algebra papers. Kadam’s son was caught copying the Algebra paper and during the interrogations Kadam and Laad’s role came forward.