T
he leak in the Maharashtra TET-2026 paper became known when some irregularities emerged in the confidential examination material used for the purpose of the teacher eligibility test.
The announcement made by the Maharashtra State Council of Examination mentioned that despite the security measures put in place in the aftermath of the irregularities witnessed during the NEET examination, confidential information that was obtained at the very beginning of Saturday revealed that some people in Bhiwandi were in possession of the leaked material. As a result, the case gave rise to an investigation initiated by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) which aimed to determine the source of the leak and people involved in the racket.
Very soon, the leak was tracked down to the printing process of the examination.
In a breakthrough on July 5, the SIT investigating the Maharashtra TET paper leak made arrests of three printing press workers based in Agra who were allegedly responsible for the theft of the confidential examination questions.
This evidence enabled investigators to track the existence of an organized network capable of leaking examination materials, resulting in determining Gupta as the alleged racketeer.
However, Gupta managed to evade his arrest for quite some time despite the efforts of the police department to catch him. According to the information provided by a police official, Bijendra Gupta had managed to evade his arrest despite continuous raids and searches carried out by the investigating agency until he was finally located in Bihar on specific information by the Bhiwandi Police.
However, he did not have any company during the final stages of the operation. In fact, both Gupta and his accomplice, Indrajeet Singh, were escorted to Bhiwandi after their arrest, and it was noted by the police that Gupta had been evading them for several days.
After being apprehended, the police did not waste much time in taking the man to Maharashtra for legal actions.
Thus, Gupta was airlifted from Bihar to Pune Airport and is expected to be brought to Bhiwandi soon.
The elaborate security arrangement had been made in his transit, and the police are describing the arrest of the accused as one of the major achievements during their probe into the alleged examination fraud. Currently, Gupta, along with his accomplice is being interrogated by the police in the DCP Zone-2 office.
The probe against the Gupta network has already covered his close family even before Gupta was arrested. As per reports, in June, the SIT had arrested Suman Gupta, wife of Bijendra Kumar Gupta, in Patna, with the investigators believing that she knew about the paper leak racket and that some of the financial transactions pertaining to the alleged proceeds of the scam had been performed by her.
This particular detail reveals that there was a financial probe being carried out even before the arrest of Gupta, which focused on the movement of money that is alleged to be earned from the paper leak racket. The number of arrests made in this case alone has been steadily rising over the past few months.
With the arrest of Gupta, the total number of arrests made in this case stands at 14, although according to other reports, it is closer to 10 arrests till date for this paper leak case.
It has also emerged that Gupta, whose origin the police claim is Bihar, has worked under different identities while evading arrest. Gupta was arrested under the aliases of Bijendra Kumar Gupta and Bijendra Kumar Baleshwar Shah in Patna, Bihar.
However, what seems to attract the interest of the investigators most is the likelihood of Gupta's involvement in more crimes beyond this crime. The police suspect that Gupta is behind a number of examination papers leaks in different states. The police are currently investigating Gupta for the leakage of examination papers in a number of examination papers leak cases such as the 2023 Odisha Staff Selection Commission examination, the Bihar Public Service Commission examination, and the Madhya Pradesh Public Service Commission examination.
Gupta is allegedly the mastermind behind the TET paper leak, which seems to be one of the many examination papers leaks carried out by Gupta in the country.
The arrest is made in the midst of the larger discourse on integrity of competitive and eligibility examinations. The earlier in the year there was another case where the Economic Offenses Unit of Bihar arrested the mastermind of the NEET-UG 2024 paper leak, which also had links to various other recruitment examinations at state level.
This case also drew attention towards the issue of integrity of examination bodies, the printing units and the security systems meant for protecting the confidentiality of such test papers. This case in Maharashtra TET was not only about the activities of the alleged gang run by Gupta.
There were other cases as well, including a raid at Kolhapur leading to the arrest of various individuals for leakage of paper to candidates for money.
Now that Gupta is in police custody, investigators are hopeful that their questioning of him will produce vital information regarding the extent of the fraud network. The next round of the investigation is expected to produce new clues and reveal the true extent of the examination fraud network, while the arrest of Gupta is expected to provide crucial clues, including the source of the leak as well as any other members who have been involved.
