Railway recruitment exam papers leak, test cancelled

Railway recruitment examinations for Group IV posts scheduled for Sunday were cancelled following a leakage of question papers, a senior railway official said in Lucknow.

The examination, which was conducted at various centers in the city on Sunday, had been cancelled after the Special Task Force of the state police Saturday evening arrested some people who were allegedly selling question papers, Northern Railway Divisional Railway Manager R K Gupta said.

Gupta said the STF informed him that some people were arrested after a decoy was sent to buy question papers.

The question papers allegedly supplied by the persons who have been arrested "...tallied with the original papers. They were found to be almost the same. Only the sequence of the questions was different."

He said the "answer key" being sold in the market was hand-written.

In view of the leakage, the Railway recruitment exam scheduled for Sunday had been cancelled and fresh dates would be announced later, the DRM said.

Gupta said he would be sending a report to Railways headqaurters in New Delhi, which would take a decision on fixing fresh dates for the exams.

He said the episode was being inquired into but the possibility of the "leakage stemming from the state capital appeared remote as the question papers reached here only last evening."

The examinations were being conducted at nine different centres and the papers may have been leaked at some other place also, the DRM said.

The STF had arrested 25 people and was interrogating them in connection with the leakage, police added.