Question paper reaches 2 NBR employees before dawn, spreads with answers within hours

At 4:43 am, a blurry photograph of the question paper arrived on the mobile phone of Nur Mohammad, an office assistant at the National Board of Revenue (NBR). Nearly an hour and a half later, at around 6:15 am, Jahangir, a computer operator at the same organisation, received a clearer photograph of the same question paper.

An answer sheet was then prepared and circulated among other members of the network. Through them, it reached prospective candidates and people seeking to buy the leaked questions.

The Special Response Battalion (SRB) said it had pieced together this sequence by examining mobile phone conversations and data retrieved from the phones of those arrested in connection with the leak of the recruitment examination questions for assistant youth development officer posts at the Department of Youth Development.

Over the past three days, the force arrested seven people in raids in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country. Besides NBR employees, those arrested include staff members of the Department of Environment and the Ministry of Defence.

Based on information provided by the arrestees, the force seized 116 stamp papers each costs Tk 100, four Tk 50 stamp papers, a set of question papers, 19 pages of admission cards for various examinations, 10 certificates of different categories, another 15 certificates of various types, 48 pages of bank cheques from different banks, a cheque book from one bank, six national identity cards and Tk 4,000 in cash.

The arrestees are Nur Mohammad, 30, an office assistant at the NBR; Jahangir, 38, an NBR computer operator; SM Imdadul Islam, 35, an NBR computer operator; Asadul Islam, 33, an office assistant at the Ministry of Defence; Md Rubel Islam, 33, a data entry operator at the Department of Environment; and two other members of the network, Mofizul Islam, 23, and Md Hasinur Rahman alias Sujon.

Lieutenant Colonel Faizul Arefin, commander of SRB-3, disclosed the information at a press conference at the SRB media centre in Karwan Bazar, Dhaka, on Friday afternoon.

Last Saturday, candidates took to the streets and blocked roads in different parts of Dhaka to protest the question paper leak in the Department of Youth Development recruitment examination.

The Ministry of Youth and Sports formed a five-member committee the same day to investigate the allegations, appointing an additional secretary to head it. The committee has yet to submit its report. Meanwhile, the recruitment examination was held again today.

Lieutenant Colonel Faizul Arefin, commander of SRB-3, said the recruitment test for 242 vacant assistant youth development officer posts at the Department of Youth Development had been scheduled for 10 October. A total of 319,000 jobseekers had applied.

The examination was scheduled to begin at 11:00 am that day, but the authorities postponed it after confirming the question paper leak at 10:03 am.

The SRB launched a shadow investigation following the incident. On 11 October, the Department of Youth Development filed a case with Motijheel police station. The SRB intelligence team began investigating to identify the possible source of the question paper, those supplying it, intermediaries distributing it and its buyers.

The force subsequently found evidence pointing to the involvement of an organised network. Acting on that information, it arrested seven people in raids in Dhaka and elsewhere on 14, 15 and 16 October.

At the press conference, the SRB said preliminary inquiries had pointed to the involvement of Rubel Islam, a data entry operator at the Department of Environment. He was arrested along with two others in Motijheel, Dhaka, while money was allegedly being transferred in connection with an admission-related racket.

Mofizul, one of those arrested, is a jobseeker. After being defrauded of Tk 1.7 million by a member of a racket, he joined the network in the hope of making more money.

Information provided by the arrestees and an analysis of their mobile phone conversations led investigators to other members of the network. SM Imdadul Islam, a computer operator at the NBR, was arrested in the Uttarkhan area, while Asadul Islam, an office assistant at the Ministry of Defence, was arrested in Mirpur-10, Dhaka.

Later, based on mobile phone chat records, SRB-4 arrested NBR office assistant Nur Mohammad in Savar on Thursday. On Friday, evidence and information obtained from him led to the arrest of Jahangir, a computer operator at the same organisation, in Mohammadpur.

Lieutenant Colonel Faizul Arefin said an examination of messages exchanged on the arrested individuals’ mobile phones had revealed a sequence of events showing how the question paper was obtained and distributed.

According to the investigation, at around 4:43 am on 10 October, NBR office assistant Nur Mohammad received a blurry photograph of the question paper from an unidentified source. At around 6:15 am, Jahangir sent him a clearer photograph of the paper.

Nur Mohammad then prepared answers to the questions and sent them to Jahangir and his colleague Imdadul Islam. Preliminary findings suggest that the information was subsequently passed on to the network members’ own candidates and those involved in distributing the leaked questions.

Investigators found indications of the involvement of Asadul Islam, Rubel Islam, Mofizul Islam and Hasinur Rahman Sujon.

The network used fake identities on WhatsApp to communicate and conduct transactions. Its members sold the leaked questions and answer sheets to candidates they knew for Tk 800,000 to Tk 1 million.

During questioning, the suspects did not disclose how many people had bought the questions from them. They said they had been involved in leaking question papers for various recruitment examinations.

According to their statements, they charged Tk 800,000 to Tk 1 million for question papers for third-class recruitment examinations and Tk 1.5 million to Tk 2 million for second-class recruitment examinations.

During questioning, Nur Mohammad and Jahangir failed to give satisfactory answers about who had supplied them with the question paper for the assistant youth development officer recruitment examination.

Asked whether anyone at the Department of Youth Development had been involved in the leak, SRB official Faizul Arefin said the matter could be confirmed after the investigation was completed.