Telangana BJP president Bandi Sanjay Kumar has been remanded in judicial custody till April after being accused as one of the prime suspects in the SSC paper leak after the police picked him up from his home late on Tuesday night triggering a political war.
According to the police, Bandi along with two other accused hatched a plan to leak the question paper of the ongoing SSC public exam to portray the failure of the Telangana government in preventing a paper leak. Bandi had taken a picture of the question paper on his phone and started to recirculate it to create fear among parents and students.
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On Wednesday evening, Sanjay Kumar, a Lok Sabha MP from the Karimnagar constituency, was produced in a local court in the Warangal, which remanded him to judicial custody for two weeks with three others.
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 in Hanumakonda district 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.
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“There was WhatsApp conversation between Sanjay and the second accused (a former journalist of a TV channel). There were also WhatsApp calls between them. When we asked Sanjay, he said his phone is not with him. If we examine his phone, some more information will come out,” the Police Commissioner told reporters at a press conference in Warangal.
“We feel that they wanted to create a sense of insecurity among students. There is no political motive in filing cases. This (the leakage of papers) was done under the direction of Bandi Sanjay,” he added.
The official further said the leaked question paper found its way into the phones of several BJP leaders, including former minister and legislator Etela Rajender.
Ranganath said the arrest of Sanjay Kumar has been intimated to the Lok Sabha Speaker’s office as per procedure, and added that the police had the power to arrest a person under Section 41 of CrPC without issuing a notice first under certain circumstances.
After his preventive arrest, Sanjay Kumar tweeted: “Fear is real in BRS.! First they stop me from conducting press meet & now arrest me late in night. My only mistake is to Question BRS govt on its wrongdoings. Do not stop questioning BRS even if I am jailed. Jai Sri Ram! Bharat Mata ki Jai! Jai Telangana."
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He even posted the videos of his preventive arrest along with the tweet.
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 along with another accused, a driver.
A total of 10 people have been named as accused in the case and five are absconding.
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Police, in the remand report, 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 in the remand report.
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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), by stating that if it also happens on April 4, then they could circulate the same on social media and defame the state government.
The development comes days ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the state to inaugurate various projects.
(with PTI inputs)
