Telangana BJP chief arrested, named prime accused in SSC question paper leak case

Telangana BJP president and MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar was arrested by police on Wednesday and was named the prime accused by Warangal police in a case of malpractice after a question paper of Standard 10 (SSC) board exam surfaced on various groups of an instant messaging app, police said.

Sanjay Kumar, a Lok Sabha MP from Karimnagar constituency, was picked up by a team of police past midnight on Tuesday from his residence in Karimnagar city, triggering protests by his party workers.

The paper of Standard 10 (SSC) board exam in Telangana found its way into an instant messaging platform for the second day on Tuesday after a 16-year old boy took a photo of the paper from a student who appeared for the exam and shared it with that student’s brother while the exam was going on, police said.

The paper was then posted in a group of the instant messaging app and subsequently shared in other groups by one of the accused, who had also sent a copy to Sanjay Kumar, police added.

Sanjay Kumar had sought to defame the government by conspiring to create fear among the students and their parents during the ongoing SSC public examination, as the blame for the question paper leak would fall on the Telangana administration, the police alleged.

After images of an SSC Hindi question paper surfaced on the social media platform, police took up the investigation and apprehended the 16-year-old boy and arrested two others on Tuesday, who include a former journalist of a TV channel and a lab assistant who had allegedly circulated the question paper on the app. Subsequently, Sanjay Kumar was arrested in the early hours of Wednesday. Police claimed that the technical evidence gained by analysing call details of the phones of all the accused and the chats of the accused on the app proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused persons were involved in a conspiracy with regard to the ”leaking” and copying of the question papers on April 4. “This is a pre-planned and criminal conspiracy. Malpractices (have been committed) in SSC public examination with an intention to create rumours and provoke breach of peace of the ongoing public examination in Telangana state wherein Bandi Sanjay Kumar hatched a plan with the help of two other accused to leak out the ongoing SSC papers by taking a photo of a question paper in the cell phone,” police alleged. The police accused Sanjay Kumar of giving direction to the second accused to exploit the situation of the leak of the Telugu question paper which happened on April 3 (Monday), and to circulate it. The BJP state chief sought to portray it as the failure of the government in preventing the question paper leak, the police claimed. The development comes days ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the state to inaugurate various projects.

Sanjay Kumar, who was initially shifted to Bommalaramaram police station under Rachakonda Police Commissionerate limits here was subsequently taken by the police to Warangal.

Earlier, a large number of BJP workers gathered near Bommalaramaram police station to protest Kumar’s arrest and also raised slogans against Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao. They demanded that Sanjay Kumar be released immediately.

BJP MLA M Raghunandan Rao and several party leaders and workers were prevented from going there.

Four government staff were suspended on Monday in Vikarabad district of Telangana after a stand-by invigilator at a government school allegedly took a photo of the Telugu question paper of SSC board exams and shared it with another teacher on an instant messaging app while the test was going on.

The SSC exams in the state began on Monday.