Thiruvananthapuram: In a new twist to the Kerala Public Service Commission (PSC) examination scam involving two leaders of the Students' Federation of India (SFI) R Shivaranjith and A N Naseem, who were also accused of stabbing a student at University College in Thiruvananthapuram, it has come to light that the duo had used hi-tech methods and modern gadgets to cheat in the civil police officer test.
Both the accused are remanded in jail in connection with the stabbing case.
Sivaranjith had topped the rank list and Naseem secured 28th position in the test conducted in July, 2018. The rank list was published on July 1, 2019.
According to sources, the Crime Branch has information that bluetooth devices and smart watches could have been used by the candidates to send out the question paper and get the answers back.
Modus operandi
Mobile phones are not allowed inside the PSC examination hall. The sleuths revealed that the duo must have connected the phone to their smartwatch via bluetooth before leaving their phones outside the hall. The Crime Branch suspected that the answers sent by their friends to the phones were received by the duo on their smartwatch.
The cops suspect that more than 50 people were involved in this fraud. The preliminary investigation pointed at two methods likely used to leak the question paper. The first one is to throw the question paper outside the hall through the window. And someone outside found the answers from a guide book and sent them to the accused's phone. For this, other students must have helped the duo. Another method is to seek the help of a staff of the University College or someone who was on duty at the exam centre to send out the question paper to the duo's friends waiting outside. The friends would have sent the answers from outside via phone.
The internal vigilance wing of the PSC had found that Shivaranjith's phone had received 96 SMSes, while Pranav, another accused in the stabbing case, got 78 messages during the exam. Pranav got the second rank.
It was only after the SFI leaders were named in the stabbing case at the University College that their PSC exam results came under scanner.
Accused cop on the run
The Crime Branch sleuths said they were trying to track down Gokul, a cop with the Peroorkada SAP camp, who reportedly sent the answers to the accused’s phones during the examination. Further investigation will be held only interrogating Gokul, the officers added.
Gokul, Kallara native Safeer, Shivaranjith, Naseem and Pranav were accused of committing fraud during the PSC exam. Gokul, Safeer and Pranav are on the run. Though Gokul's bike is at the SAP camp, he has not informed the seniors at office about his whereabouts. As he has been absent for 21 consecutive days, disciplinary action would be taken against him.
Several PSC guide books were found during a search at Gokul's house. Gokul had been reportedly preparing for the PSC exam for years. The Crime Branch also received information that Gokul was trying to get anticipatory bail.
Duo scores zero
The Crime Branch also interrogated Shivaranjith and A N Naseem in the jail for five hours. During the interrogation, Sivaranjith couldn't answer correctly a single question posed by the interrogators from the same PSC question paper. Nazeem too was at his wit's end. Both admitted that they did copy answers during the test.
During questioning, both initially stuck to their claim that they could score high marks in the public exam with proper preparation. But it all fell apart during the tactical questioning of DySP K Harikrishnan and SI Anoop.
When asked how did they score high ranks, the accused replied "With proper preparation; most questions were easy; guessed a few and by luck, those answers were correct." When the team repeated questions from the question paper one by one, the accused failed to answer any and claimed they had copied from candidates seated next to them. When the investigators countered them by saying that the candidates next to them didn't make the cut, Naseem said "Don’t know how, but that’s how I did it."
Sivaranjith was stumped and fumbled in his bid to reply. He was almost speechless when asked who had sent him 96 messages during the test.
The interrogators showed them the content of the messages on his phone seized by the cops earlier.