In a major breakthrough, the Balasore police has arrested seven persons including the mastermind behind the leak of the question paper of the Odisha Staff Selection Commission (OSSC) JE (Civil) Main Written Examination.
According to sources, all the accused have been arrested from Bihar while the mastermind in the case is a resident of the State.
Earlier, police had arrested nine persons from Digha in West Bengal in connection with the case.
Balasore police had constituted three teams which were divided into five groups to nab the mastermind of the case. The groups were sent to Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi.
Though it is suspected that the mastermind might have connections with OSSC officials, the Balasore SP Sagarika Nath had recently given a clean chit to the commission citing no one from the OSSC is involved in the scam.
Meanwhile, the Balasore police will bring the accused on remand for further questioning to extract more facts on how they managed to leak the question papers and got the contact details of the aspirants.
It is worthwhile to mention here that the OSSC on July 23 had cancelled the Main Written Examination for JE (Civil) conducted on July 16, 2023 after Balasore SP had confirmed the question paper leak incident.
The commission has also rescheduled the examination on 3 September.
Soon after the cancellation of the examination, scores of aspirants had staged a demonstration in front of the office of the Commission on July 24 demanding stern action against the staff and officials allegedly involved in the scam.
It is being alleged that question paper was leaked after taking huge money from 88 aspirants.