Bhubaneswar: Police have arrested another person in connection with the Odisha Teacher Eligibility Test (OTET) 2025 question paper leak case, taking the total number of arrests to seven, officials said Friday.
The latest arrest was made in Kalahandi district.
The accused, identified as Prasant Kumar Khamari, is a government upper primary school teacher at Bhejipadar in Bhawanipatna, they added.
According to Odisha Police’s crime branch, Khamari was allegedly involved in the leak of question papers for the Special OTET-2025 examination, scheduled to be held July 20 by the Board of Secondary Education (BSE) headquartered in Cuttack.
The hand-written question paper of the exam, which went viral on different social media platforms, was written by Khamari, a senior official claimed.
According to the investigation, Khamari conspired with several others to carry out the leak. They include Bijay Kumar Mishra, Ex-Cadre Working President of the State Ex-Cadre Teachers’ Association, and Sanatan Bisoi, President of the Ex-Cadre Teachers’ Association of Koraput District.
He also enticed gullible candidates (teachers) who had failed in the last Special OTET examination and sold out the papers to make easy money, a crime branch official said, adding that it was found that he transferred Rs 99,000 through phone pay to Mishra after collecting cash from gullible teachers.
Earlier, six other accused had been arrested and produced before the JMFC-III court in Cuttack.
Police also seized Khamari’s mobile phone and collected his handwriting samples in the presence of witnesses.
PTI
