Bhubaneswar: In the Odisha Teacher Eligibility Test (OTET) question paper leak case, the Crime Branch Sunday arrested Nihar Mohanty, vice president of the Board of Secondary Education.
Mohanty was taken into custody after being questioned by the agency a day earlier.
The BSE was supposed to hold the special OTET-2025 July 20. A late-night notification announced the indefinite postponement of the test following the exposure of the leaked paper.
“During the investigation, clear-cut negligence of BSE vice president Nihar Mohanty was found. He was having a suspicious relation with prime accused Jitan Moharana, who was working as a data entry operator at the office of the BSE,” said Vinaytosh Mishra, Director General of Police (Crime Branch).
So far, eight persons, including the BSE vice-president and a data entry operator, have been arrested in the question paper leak case, he said.
During the investigation, the police found that Jitan Moharana had first circulated the handwritten question paper to two other accused persons, and then it went viral on social media.
When the crime branch started investigating how Moharana was able to get access to the question paper, as he didn’t have the authority, it was found that the vice-president was coordinating with a Bhopal-based agency for printing of the question paper, Mishra told reporters here.
As per protocol, Mohanty only had access to the question paper using an ID and password. He was supposed to proofread the question paper, make necessary corrections and then delete it from the computer, he said.
“However, we found that he has not deleted the question paper from his laptop and gave its access to the data entry operator Jitan Moharana even though he has no business with dealing with the question set,” the DGP (Crime Branch) said.
While examining the call records, the crime branch found that Mohanty had telephonic conversation with Jitan Moharana for more than 100 times beyond the official hours during the past three months, he added.
The DGP (Crime Branch) said Moharana had no role in the conduct of the examination. Still, the vice president had deliberately given him laptop access, which helped him leak the question paper. So, both have an equal role in the question leak case.
The police will now start a financial investigation into the question paper leak case, he said, adding, “We are also trying to find out whether any other person was involved in the case or not.”
PNN & Agencies
