On Wednesday evening, the Warangal Police named Bandi Sanjay, the president of the Telangana BJP, as A-1 in the remand report of the SSC paper leak case.
CP Ranganath of Warangal said in a media interview: “We produced the accused in the court at Kamalapur PS. Bandi Sanjay is named A-1, A-2 Booram Prashant, a freelance journalist and A-3 is Mahesh.”
“Booram Prashant made the paper viral through chain link. We have registered cases under sections 120b, 420,447,505(1)(b) IPC sec (4). The paper was forwarded to 7 media heads in Hyderabad at 11.18 am on Tuesday and it was forwarded to Bandi Sanjay at 11.24 am. He messaged many people including Eatala Rajender, his PA and to several BJP leaders,” the police commissioner stated.
He further added, “Along with Prashanth, Mahesh also sent it to many people. On 3rd evening, Prashant chatted with Sanjay many times on WhatsApp call. We are collecting more technical evidence. It’s all a game plan. They planned to spread publicity as paper leakage.”
Tuesday, around midnight, Bandi Sanjay was taken into custody on suspicion of taking part in the paper leak case to destabilise the state government.
10th Standard (SSC) board exam paper in Telangana was shared with the student’s brother by a 16-year-old who had taken a photo of the paper from a student who had already appeared for the exam, while it was going on, according to the police. This happened on the second day of the exam.
One of the accused circulated the paper in other groups after posting it in one, and he also gave a copy to Sanjay Kumar, according to the police.
Sanjay Kumar allegedly planned to frighten children and their parents during the current SSC public exams so that the Telangana administration would be held accountable for the question paper leak, in an effort to defame the government.
After reports of an SSC Hindi examination on the social media platform, authorities launched an inquiry, detained the 16-year-old boy, and on Tuesday, detained two other people, including a former TV channel journalist and a lab assistant who had reportedly distributed the exam paoers on the app. Sanjay Kumar was subsequently taken into custody early on Wednesday.
The accused were allegedly involved in a plot over the “leaking” and copying of the exam papers on April 4, according to technical evidence obtained by analysing call history from all of the accused’s phones and their chats on the app, according to the police.
“This is a pre-planned and criminal conspiracy. Malpractices (have been committed) in SSC public examination with an intention to create rumours and provoke breach of peace of the ongoing public examination in Telangana state wherein Bandi Sanjay Kumar hatched a plan with the help of two other accused to leak out the ongoing SSC papers by taking a photo of a question paper in the cell phone,” police alleged.
Sanjay Kumar was charged with giving the second accused instructions to take advantage of the Telugu exam paper leak that occurred on April 3 (Monday) and spread it, according to the police. The police claimed that the BJP state chief attempted to portray it as the government’s failure to stop the question paper leak.
The news breaks only days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits the state to officially launch a number of projects.
The police later moved Sanjay Kumar to Warangal after initially moving him to the Bommalaramaram police station within the Rachakonda Police Commissionerate’s control.
A large number of BJP members had earlier gathered close to the Bommalaramaram police station to protest the detention of Kumar and to raise slogans against Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao slogans. Sanjay Kumar’s immediate release was demanded.
After a stand-by invigilator at a government school allegedly took a photo of the Telugu question paper for the SSC board exams and shared it with another teacher on an instant messaging app while the test was in progress, four government employees were suspended on Monday in the Telangana district of Vikarabad. Beginning on Monday, the state’s SSC exams.
