Pune Police Arrest Lt Colonel In Army Recruitment Exam Paper Leak Case
Mubarak Ansari
Pune, 18th May 2021: The Crime Branch of Pune City Police have arrested a Lieutenant Colonel rank officer in connection with an Army recruitment exam paper leak case. Till now nine persons including three officers have been arrested.
According to police, Lt. Col Bhagat Preet Singh Bedi (45), who is posted as the chief recruitment officer at the Army Ordnance Corps (AOC) centre in Secunderabad, is the main accused in the paper leak case. His accomplice Narnepati Veerprasad has been arrested from Delhi. They have been remanded to police custody till May 25.
As per the FIR registered at Wanowrie police station, about 30,000 candidates from across the country were to appear for the test at 40 different centres on February 28th this year. However, the Southern Command Liaison Unit (SCLU) of the Military Intelligence (MI) received a tip-off about the paper leak and informed the Pune police. Accordingly, police arrested five persons including two serving Army jawans. The leak was detected a few hours before the exam. The all India common entrance exam (CEE) for Army relation recruitment was cancelled as the leaked paper matched 100 percent with the original one.
Later it was found that an officer had sent the paper to the accused. Police arrested Major Thiru Murugan Thangavelu (47) from Wellington in Tamil Nadu and Major Vasant Vijay Kilari (45) from Delhi. Earlier police had informed the court that Major Thangavelu was to give Rs 25 lakh to Major Kilari who in turn was to pay the amount to another accused. Kilari had sent the question paper to Thangvelu on WhatsApp. They had deleted the chat which was retrieved by experts.
The other arrested accused are Kishor Mahadev Giri (40) of Malegaon in Baramati taluka, Madhav Sheshrao Gite (39) of Sappers Vihar Colony in BEG Training Battalion (TB) 2, Army Jawans Gopal Yuvraj Koli (31) of Bombay Engineer Group’s (BEG) Training Battalion (TB) 2, Dighi and Uday Dattu Awti (23) of BEG Centre, Khadki and ex-serviceman Bharat Laxman Adakmol (37) of Pachora in Jalgaon district.
Giri runs a private coaching centre for recruitment in the armed forces, Koli is a physical training instructor at Training Battalion 2 of BEG&C and Awti is from regimental police (RP). Gite had assembled 14 candidates at Samruddhi Hotel in Vishrantwadi for giving them leaked question papers on the night of February 27. According to officials, the accused persons charged Rs 4-5 lakh from each candidate for providing the question paper.
While the investigation of this crime was going on, police learnt that the chief officer of the recruitment process at AOC Centre Secunderabad, Lt Col Bedi, had leaked the paper. A team was sent there to arrest him in Secunderabad while his accomplice Narnepati Virprasad was arrested from his residence in New Delhi.
The action was taken under the guidance of Commissioner of Police Amitabh Gupta, Joint Commissioner of Police Dr Ravindra Shisve, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ashok Morale, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Shrinivas Ghadge and Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime 2) Laxman Borate.
The team included Anti-Extortion Cell’s Senior Police Inspector Vitthal Patil, API Sandeep Buwa, Shirish Bhalerao, ASI Pandurang Wanjle, Yashwant Ombase, Head Constable Atul Sathe, Praveen Rajput, Madhukar Tupsaunder, Phulpagare, Hema Dhembe, Police Naik Nitin Kamble, Gajanan Sonwalkar, Ashwini Kekan, Rajendra Landge, Constables Prafulla Chavan, Nitin Rawal, Vivek Jadhav, Amar Pawar and Piraji Belle.
