Crime Branch nabs IGNOU paper leak mastermind, four associates

New Delhi: The Delhi Police Crime Branch nabbed five persons in connection with the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) paper leak case, police said on Sunday.
The mastermind, Dev Shankar, who was a contractual employee of the IGNOU Study Centre in Bokaro Steel City, was arrested along with four of his associates – Vivek Kumar Sharma, Ankit Saxena, Mohammad Iqbal, and Johanson Hans.
A complaint was received in December last year at Neb Sarai Police Station in the national capital. It was filed by S.G. Swami who is working as Registrar at the Student Evaluation Division of IGNOU. The complaint was regarding the leakage of a question paper – MCS-033 (Advanced Discrete Mathematics) of MCA 3rd Semester.
He informed that the term end examination of MCA 3rd Semester was scheduled to be held on December 8 last year but a day before the exam, two e-mails were detected with the attachment of a question paper from two different e-mail IDs claiming that aforesaid question paper had already been leaked.
“The question paper attached with the mails was found similar to the question paper, which was scheduled to be held on the said date,” the complainant said.
Following his complaint, a case was registered under section 420 read with section 34 of the Indian Penal Code. Further, a team was constituted and after examining over 500 suspects and surveillance of their mobile phones, Shankar, the mastermind of the criminal plot, was nabbed.