The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Bihar Police on Thursday arrested five persons in connection with the state board exams scam, while the police are on the lookout of two person, who are absconding.
"Five persons have been found accused prima facie. We will send the papers for probe and more evidences will be revealed. Two persons have also been found accused-Lalkeshwar Rai, the chairman of the BSEB and Bachcha Rai, who is the faculty of the Vishnu Roy College. We are working in the case and we are hopeful of exposing the scam," Senior Superintendent of Police Manu Maharaj told the media here.
Divulging details of the searches, which were carried out in different colleges of the state, Maharaj said an FIR was registered, after which a special team was formed and divided to carry out raids in many colleges.
"The FIR had names of seven persons-coordinator of Vishnu Roy College, G.A inter college's president, Raj Dev college's president and there were names of four students," he said.
Revealing the names of the persons arrested in the scam, the SSP said, "Five persons who have been arrested are-Visheswar Yadav of the Rajkiya Vidyalaya, Sanjeev Kumar Suman, Sambhunath Das, Ranjit Kumar Mishra and Shail Kumari. Prima facie there are evidences of forgery in the papers which we have seized. It has also got revealed that there were few selected schools that were being inspected."
He further stated that based on the inspection of the colleges, changes were made in the mark sheets.
"This is a big matter and other than these seven, there can be more arrests. All the decisions on the students will only be possible after the FSL report. It's a documentary-based case, so we will probe the matter based on the documents," he added.
Amid mounting pressure with regard to alleged irregularities in the 10+2 exams, Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) secretary Harihar Nath Jha yesterday resigned from his post.
The move came hours after the board's chairman Lalkeshwar Prasad Singh resigned from his post, following a second showcause notice by the education department.
A team of state police and CID visited the BSEB headquarter earlier on Tuesday and perused the results of the intermediate examination.
The team also took away Singh's computer, laptop and smart phone.
The board had first served a notice to the chairman earlier on Saturday over Singh's unilateral decision to set up a judicial probe into the irregularities without the government's nod.
That same day, the department of education set up a committee to investigate the matter as well.
However, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar dissolved both the committees the next day and ordered a criminal investigation into the entire episode.
"It is matter of investigation, not inquiry, to fix accountability and take action against whoever is found guilty," he said.
The Bihar School Examination Board ( BSEB) earlier on June 4 cancelled the results of two toppers, including Sourabh Shrestha, of the Intermediate (Science) examinations after they failed to prove their merits in a re-test.
The board had on June 3 asked Sourabh and his college mate Rahul Kumar, who were among the 13 toppers from the arts and science streams in the Class XII examinations, to reappear in a re-test following a controversy over their merits.
Saurabh Shrestha from the Science stream, who had secured 485 out of 500, was caught on camera failing to answer basic questions.
Ruby Rai, the arts topper, from the same college failed to take the re-test on Friday citing health reasons.
Rai had secured 444 marks out of 500 in the Arts stream. However, on camera she did not even appear to know the number of subjects in her course.
