Bengaluru, January 23: With the Bengaluru Central Crime Branch police busting the question paper leak racket on Saturday night, Karnataka Public Service Commission (KPSC) has cancelled competitive examinations for First Division Assistant scheduled on Sunday.

The Bengaluru Joint Police Commissioner, (Crime), Sandeep Patil said in his tweet that the question paper of - First Division Assistant - examination that was scheduled on Sunday (January 24) has been leaked and the police has arrested six persons in this connection.

"We have seized question papers, Rs 24 lakh cash and three stolen vehicles from them," his tweet further read. A senior police officer from Central Crime Branch (CCB) said that acting on a tip off, a CCB special team conducted raids in Ullal in Jnanabharati police station limits and arrested Chandru and Rachappa red handed along with four others.

The police added that the gang was using the stolen vehicles to circulate the question papers to job aspirants who had approached them a few days ago and paid some money in advance. All of them were taken into custody for questioning to ascertain their network and informed the KPSC.

At present the CCB officials are verifying the background of the arrested to ascertain whether they have any connection with Shivakumar, a kingpin of PU question paper leak. He was arrested in 2016 by the Karnataka CID police and in 2018 he was arrested by the CCB police in connection with police constable recruitment question paper leak. As the news broke, the KPSC immediately announced the cancellation of examinations scheduled on Sunday (January 24).

The KPSC had conducted this examination for 1,112 vacancies for the post of First Division Assistant, out of which 975 are reserved for Residual Parent Cadre (RPC) and 137 for Hyderabad Karnataka Local Cadre (HK) and cumulative about 3.75 lakh job aspirants had applied for these posts across the state.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 23, 2021 11:22 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).