Vyapam: Mysterious death of trainee woman cop is the latest

A woman trainee sub-inspector, Anamika Sikarwar (25), became the latest victim of the Vyapam scam on Monday.

Sikarwar was found dead in a lake adjacent to the Police Training Academy at Sagar district headquarters in Madhya Pradesh.

This follows the unexplained deaths of journalist Akshay Singh, who was covering the scam in Jhabua, and Jabalpur Medical College Dean Arun Sharma, probing fake examinees, on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

Sagar police superintendent Gautam Solanki said they suspect Anamika's death to be a case of suicide. She was selected as a sub-inspector in an exam conducted by Vyapam, but the police said that her selection has nothing to do with Vyapam scam and she was not a suspected beneficiary.

So far, about 45 people related to Vyapam scam and investigations have died mysteriously.

TV journalist Akshay Singh had died on Saturday under mysterious circumstances soon after he had interviewed the parents of a girl who was found dead after her name figured in the massive admission and recruitment scandal.

What is Vyapam?

Vyasvasayik Pareeksha Mandal (VYAPAM), or professional examination board (PEB), is a UPSC-type body that conducts recruitment tests for professional courses and for 40 departments in Madhya Pradesh.

What is the controversy?

Vyapam has turned into a massive admission and recruitment scam involving politicians, senior officials and businessmen in Madhya Pradesh. The scam relates to a lot of undeserving candidates, who bribed politicians and MPPEB officials through middlemen, to get high ranks in the entrance tests. Cases of irregularities were reported since 2004. But after major complaints surfaced in the pre-medical test (PMT) for 2009, the state government set up a probe panel. The committee released its report in 2011, and over 100 people were arrested. A Special Task Force (STF) was constituted in 2012. The sheer scale of the scam came to light in 2013, when it was revealed that several officials and politicians were involved. By June 2015, some 1,800 people had been arrested. They included the state's ex-education minister Laxmikant Sharma, over 100 politicians, several MPPEB officials, bureaucrats, middlemen, students and parents.

What was the modus operandi?

Impersonation – All information of the candidates remained intact, except photographs. Candidates' photographs were replaced by those of the impersonators, and after the exam, the originals were pasted back. The impersonators were always some brilliant students and they were paid hefty amounts.

Engine and Bogie System – A person was strategically seated between two candidates by board officials. He would let the other two copy from his sheet and the examiners were bribed.

OMR (Optical Marks Recognition) sheets – The select candidates were asked to leave their answer sheets blank. They were randomly given high percentages after the exam. Board officials would then file an RTI, seeking the answer sheets. They would then fill in the answers in the OMR booklets, according to the marks they have already been given. This was done so that if someone were to check those answer sheets, there would not be any loophole.

How the scam was unearthed?

Complaints started pouring in from 2009. In 2013, Dr Anand Rai, an Indore-based ophthalmologist and civil rights activist, alleged a massive PMT scam. He claimed that thousands of candidates secured admission to medical colleges through unfair means. On the basis of Rai's report, the state government started investigating the scam, and transferred the case to an STF. On July 6 and 7, the Indore crime branch arrested 20 candidates, of whom 17 belonged to Uttar Pradesh and three from Madhya Pradesh, from various hotels. The candidates had come to impersonate MPPMT candidates. In November 2013, the STF made a shocking revelation – that Vyapam officials rigged five more recruitment tests - Pre-PG, Food Inspector Selection Test, Milk Federation test, Subedar-Sub Inspector and Platoon Commander Selection Test and Police Constable Recruitment Test - all held during 2012.

What is the role of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan?.

In 2014, Prashant Pandey, an IT consultant hired by the STF, was arrested for trying to use the team's information to blackmail the Vyapam accused. Pandey approached Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh and claimed that he was a whistleblower, who was being harassed for exposing the role of the chief minister in the scam. He alleged that investigating agencies had tampered with the contents of the Excel sheet recovered from the hard disk of accused Nitin Mohindra's computer. Mohindra maintained a record of the candidates' names, their roll numbers and the names of those who had recommended them. Pandey claimed that the investigators had modified the original version of the sheet by removing the names of senior BJP leaders, including Chouhan, from the sheet.

Who are all involved and key arrests?

By June 2015, some 1800 people had been arrested in connection with the scam.

Laxmikant Sharma, ex-Education Minister (M.P),

Shailesh Yadav, deceased son of Governor of MP Ramnaresh Yadav

Dr. Vinod Bhandari, main accused ,who was illegally helping students to get admission through Vyapam officers, O. P. Shukla, Officer on Special Duty (OSD) with then Technical Education Minister Laxmikant Sharma., Pankaj Trivedi, Examination Controller Vyapam, Sudhir Sharma, the mining baron and an accused in the sub-inspector and constable recruitment scam. CK Mishra, Officer, Vyapam, Nitin Mahendra (Principal System Analyst) and Ajay Sen (Senior System Analyst), Vyapam programmer Yashwant Parnekar and clerk Yuvraj Hingve, Ravikant Dwivedi, Suspended Joint Commissioner (Revenue).

—With inputs from PTI