Tuesday, 02 May 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
Authorities suspects involvement of coaching institutes too
The Uttarakhand Special Task Force (STF) has booked three men for alleged rigging in International English Language Testing System (IELTS) conducted in Dehradun in February this year. All the three accused had been allegedly tampering the test papers of several aspirants belonging to certain coaching centres who provide IELTS coaching, said the senior superintendent of police, Ayush Agrawal. He said that IELTS is an international standardised test of English language proficiency conducted by
International Development Program (IDP) for non-native English speakers with a good score being necessary for admission in reputed colleges in several countries. He said that the matter of rigging in the test came to light when some students approached the STF with the complaint stating that an IELTS test was conducted in February at a hotel located near Rispana Pull and they suspect that their test sheets were tampered that resulted in their low score affecting their future. The STF soon started the investigation by checking out bank accounts details and call records of people associated with conducting the examination besides analysing CCTV footage of the nearby area. The STF found out that the driver Jitendra who worked for Blue Dart to carry the test papers to Delhi in a suitcase with digital lock for checking received a considerable amount of money in his account by a man named Saminder Mandi from Ludhiana, said SSP. He said that Saminder had been coming to Dehradun for the past few years on the scheduled dates of IELTS tests. Agrawal said that the representative of IDP Jaideep Singh also told the STF on questioning that Blue Dart manages the shipment of their papers but the digital lock of the suitcase carrying test papers was tampered when the company received it. He said that their team scanned OMR sheets of 171 candidates and found tampering in 15 sheets. Their further investigation revealed that these 15 candidates were in touch with four separate coaching centre representatives during the test in February, informed Agrawal.
The driver Jitendra told STF in preliminary questioning that Saminder along with Sahil Kumar, both of whom belong to Ludhiana, offered him Rs three lakh in lieu of handing them over OMR sheets of IELTS tests for some time. The SSP said that the Blue Dart Company’s manager Shabbir Khan was also allegedly involved in this scam too. The STF has arrested Jitendra, Shabbir and Sahil and will soon nab other culprits involved in the scam, added Agrawal.
