8 people arrested for JNTU answer booklet leak

The East Zone Task Force team on Tuesday apprehended four contract employees of JNTU, Kukatpally, and four engineering students for cheating. The students used to collect answer booklets from the employees and returned them after rewriting the answer sheet at home. The police seized Rs 3.45 lakh, 17 answer booklets, eight cell phones and one two-wheeler from their possession.
The students involved were identified as Shaik Manju Malik alias Malik, 22, Bezawada Sai Bharath, 21, Lakkasani Sarat Chandra, 22 and Vudhturi Nagarjuna Reddy, 22. They are B. Tech final year students.

The contract employees are Devarajula Parshuram, 24, Munigonda Narender, 24, Banoth Bheemudu, 22, and Banoth Mangilal, 25. Parshuram, Narender and Bheemudu were responsible for binding the B.Tech III year answer booklets, which reach the office of the Additional Controller of Examination-III, in JNTU, Kukatpally, from various engineering colleges affiliated to JNTU. Mangilal is a lift operator in JNTU. One of the students, Malik, who has three supplementary papers in his final year, bribed Mangilal, the liftman, to supply the answer booklets. Mangilal in turn contacted Parshuram, Narender and Bheemudu and informed them that he would pay good money if they gave him the B-Tech III year answer booklets.

Malik, Parshuram, Narender, Bheemudu and Mangilal formed a gang. Malik collected the details of candidates such as the hall ticket number, name of the student, name of the college and name of the subject and forwarded the same to Mangilal’s cell phone by SMS. He also used to forward the same message to Parshuram, Narender and Bheemudu. On receiving the message Parshuram, Narender and Bheemudu collected the answer booklets from the office of the Additional Controller of Examination-III, in JNTU and while binding the answer booklets in bundles smuggled them outside the centre by tying them to their legs with rubber bands. They gave them to Mangilal for Rs 6,000 to Rs 8,000 per answer booklet. Mangilal would give the answer booklets to Malik after collecting his share of the commission of Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 per answer booklet.

Malik then sold the booklets to Nagarjun, Sarat, Bharath and other B-Tech students for Rs 12,000 to Rs 15,000 each. After rewriting the exam sheet they handed over the same to Malik and the booklets reached the office of the Additional Controller of Examination in the same way. The police apprehended the accused at SR Nagar while they were receiving and handing over the answer booklets.