Lucknow, Dec 16 (IANS): The Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (UPSTF) has arrested a medical practitioner who masterminded the UP Teacher Eligibility Test (UPTET-2021) paper leak for big kickbacks.
The accused doctor, Santosh Chaurasia, was arrested from Mawaiya Metro station in Alambagh in Lucknow on Wednesday evening.
Chaurasia has eight cases lodged against him in Gwalior, Indore and Jabalpur for his role in the Vyapam scam that rocked Madhya Pradesh less than a decade ago.
Days after the UPTET paper leak, Chaurasia's name cropped up as an accused and an FIR was registered against him in Kaushambhi district, which served as a scam gateway to eastern Uttar Pradesh.
Sources saidthat he was in touch with the tainted exam controller, Sanjay Kumar Upadhyay, who was posted in neighbouring Prayagraj.
The blueprint for rigging the UPTET exam was hammered out years ago in a Madhya Pradesh prison, where Chaurasia shared his cell with another Vyapam accused Vikas Dixit.
Additional Director General of Police, STF, Amitabh Yash, told reporters that "it was Dixit, who put him through to the scamster duo of Rahul Mishra and Anurag Sharma in February, 2021, and they met in Noida. Rahul was adept at leaking question papers of government jobs and had links with printers".
After securing an MBBS degree from premier Delhi medical college, Chaurasia joined the solvers' syndicate and made quick money by deputing imposters and rigging OMR sheets of Madhya Pradesh Pre-Medical Test (PMT) in 2013-2014.
He was jailed after the scam-riddled Vyapam board went bust.
"During interrogation on Wednesday, Chaurasia disclosed he visited Lucknow in the last week of October and handed over Rs 3 lakhs to Rahul Mishra, who was confident of accessing UPTET question papers from the printing press.
"Then the doctor met another conduit, Roshan Patel, in Prayagraj, who promised to deliver the UPTET paper on WhatsApp for circulation among exam aspirants in east Uttar Pradesh," said the police officer.
On November 28, UPTET was cancelled after a question paper was leaked on social media, triggering arrests of 39 persons.
At least 20 lakh students were scheduled to take the examination at 2,736 centres in two shifts.