Pune: Rs 25 Lakhs Promised For Leaking Army Recruitment Exam Paper, Police Custody Of Two Arrested Majors Extended
Mubarak Ansari
Pune, 15th March 2021: A special court today extended the police custody of two Indian Army Major rank officers who have been arrested in connection with a paper leak of the Army relation recruitment exam. Police submitted to the court that an amount of Rs 25 lakh was promised to be paid to leak the paper.
The arrested officers have been identified as Major Thiru Murugan Thangavelu (47) and Major Vasant Vijay Kilari (45). Thangavelu was arrested from Wellington in Tamil Nadu while Kilari was arrested from Delhi.
After the expiry of their seven days of police custody, Crime Branch ACP Laxman Borate produced them before the court of Special Judge SR Navandar.The court extended the custody till March 20.
Police submitted to the court that the accused persons had conspired to leak the question paper for Rs 25 lakh. “During the investigation, Major Thangavelu said that he was to give Rs 25 lakh to Major Kilari who in turn was to pay the amount to Pawan Naidu in exchange for the question paper. Naidu is yet to be arrested”, Public Prosecutor Premkumar Agarwal informed the court.
He further said, “Both of them are not cooperating in the investigation. Kilari sent the question paper to Thangvelu on WhatsApp. However, the data in the mobile has been deleted with the intention of destroying the evidence, which is to be investigated. Thangavelu and Kilari had a conversation in Tamil and police have recovered the audio clips of the conversations which have to be translated with the help of an expert”, Agarwal said.
An FIR is registered in the case at Wanowrie police station for offences including cheating, forgery under the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
According to police, about 30,000 candidates from across the country were to appear for the test at 40 centres. However, the Military Intelligence (MI) had informed the Pune police that the question paper of the exam has been leaked and accordingly police arrested five persons including two serving Army jawans. The leak was detected a few hours before the exam which had to be cancelled on February 28. Later, the two Major rank officers were arrested.
