Lekhpal recruitment: 21 held from 7 U.P. districts for compromising exam process

With the arrest of as many as 21 people from seven districts, the Special Task Force (STF) of the Uttar Pradesh police claimed to have unearthed a nexus of two solvers’ gangs allegedly involved in compromising main written examination for recruitment of “lekhpals” held at 501 centres across the state on Sunday morning.

There were rumours of paper leak after so many arrests from different examination centres across the state. Additional director general (ADG), law and order, UP police, Prashant Kumar said solvers and candidates had been arrested for anomalies in the examination but there was no such evidence that suggested that question paper was leaked. He said the STF was further probing the incident and will do not the needful as per the findings.

Sharing further details, ADG, UP STF, Amitabh Yash said 21 people, including members of two solvers’ gangs and some candidates taking their services, were arrested for allegedly using Bluetooth earbuds and other electronic devices during the exam. He said the arrests were made from Varanasi, Prayagraj, Kanpur, Lucknow, Moradabad and Bareilly districts. Of them, one was arrested from Gonda for committing fraud in the name of providing question papers of the exam.

The ADG said the STF headquarters team first arrested Narendra Kumar Patel and Sandip Patel from Prayagraj on the basis manual intelligence. “On the revelation made by them, different STF units arrested Dilip Kumar Gupta from Varanasi, Dinesh Kumar Sahu from Prayagraj, Karan Kumar from Kanpur, Raju Kumar and Sanjay Kumar Yadav from Lucknow and Mohit Singh from Moradabad,” he added.

The ADG said another solvers’ gang was unearthed after the arrest of Vijay Kant Patel, Dinesh Kumar Yadav and Sonu Kumar from Prayagraj. He said they revealed that they had taken ₹10 lakh each from seven candidates and provided them solvers to clear the recruitment exam.

“On their revelation, Pusphendra Kumar was arrested from Varanasi and Jai Singh Patel from Kanpur. Five other candidates, who gave money for getting services of solvers, were identified as Ranvijay, Jitendra Singh, Ravi Kumar, Saurabh and Ajit Kumar. Further action will be initiated against them,” the ADG said.

He further said the second gang is a part of the gang of copying mafia Dr KL Patel and his close aide Sandeep Patel. He said they with help of Vijay Kant Patel, Dinesh Kumar Yadav and Sonu Kumar, who were arrested in Prayagraj, were trying to provide correct answers to proxy candidates through Bluetooth devices. He said Dr KL Patel had worked as a teacher in ITI, Mubarakapur, for three years earlier and started operated copying racket from there.

The ADG said Dr KL Patel’s gang had also helped five people get jobs in rural postal services around one month ago and further action was also being initiated in the matter after identifying the benefited candidates.

Another STF official said the Varanasi field unit of STF arrested another solver Raj Narayan Yadav from a Varanasi examination centre for appearing in place of Krishna Yadav, a resident of Ballia while one Pusphendra Singh was arrested from another examination centre of Varanasi. He said Rajiv Kumar was arrested from Bareilly for appearing as a proxy candidate for Rinku Singh of Rampur while Raju Kumar was arrested from Lucknow for appearing in the exam in place of Rupesh Kumar of Gorakhpur.

One Sanjay Kumar Yadav was arrested for appearing in place of Amit Yadav from Aliganj, Lucknow. He said two candidates were also arrested in Lucknow and two more people identified as Ravindra Kumar and Neeraj were arrested form Moradabad. He said one Salim Warsi was arrested from Gonda for duping people by giving them assurance that he would help them clear the “lekhpal” recruitment examination.

“Lekhpal” is a clerical government post in Uttar Pradesh that maintains village revenue accounts and village land records. They are basically the village accountant officers in the revenue administration at the village level.