Leaks earned them Tk 60 crore

The question paper of Saturday's recruitment test for hiring 1,511 cash officers in five state-owned banks was leaked from Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology (AUST), which was tasked with preparing the questions.

An ICT technician of the private university leaked the paper and handed it to a syndicate, which later sold it to thousands of jobseekers.

Ahead of the test, the syndicate members also set up 11 temporary booths at different places of Dhaka. At the booths, their "clients" were given the questions and they memorised the answers there.

The members also distributed images of the question paper among jobseekers through online messaging app -- WhatsApp.

Detectives claimed to have gleaned the information from five people, including the technician and three officials of the state-owned banks, arrested over the scam at different places of the city in the last couple of days.

"We have evidence that the question paper was leaked. Eighty-five out of the 100 questions were found to be identical with the leaked ones," AKM Hafiz Akhtar, additional commissioner (detectives) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, told a press briefing at the DMP Media Centre yesterday.

Hafiz claimed that the same syndicate leaked question papers of at least three other recruitment tests and has amassed more than Tk 60 crore from several thousand jobseekers.

At least two lakh jobseekers took the recruitment test on Saturday from 3:00pm. The one-hour exam was supervised by Bangladesh Bank's Bankers' Selection Committee.

The DB official said the syndicate was supposed to get Tk 7-15 lakh from each jobseeker. It took 20 percent of the money before the MCQ test. It was supposed to take 20 percent before the written test and the rest after the job is secured.

The DB has got a list of around 200 jobseekers who bought the question paper. It, however, believes the total number of such frauds would be more than 2,000, he said.

The arrestees are: Muktaruzzaman Royel, 26, the ICT technician of the university; three bankers -- Jane Alam Milon, 34, senior officer at Rupali Bank in Savar, Shamsul Haque Shyamol, 34, officer at Janata Bank in Gulshan, and Mostafizur Rahman Milon, 38, senior officer at Pubali Bank in Chawk Bazar; and Raisul Islam Swapan, 36, who got the syndicate clients.

A case was filed with Badda Police Station under the Digital Security Act and the Public Examinations Act against 28 people over the scam.

Police were trying to arrest all the accused.

The DB said they got a tip-off a day before the exam and conducted an undercover operation on the test day. A DB official impersonating as a jobseeker contacted Swapan and paid him in advance for the question paper. Later, Swapan took the officer to a booth in Badda, where the accused was caught red-handed along with the questions, Hafiz said.

A DB team waited till the exam ended at 4:00pm and found that the questions had in fact been leaked.

The DB said Muktaruzzaman, one of the kingpins of the racket, leaked the questions taking help from one of his colleagues. He then handed the question paper to Milon who gave it to Shyamol. Shyamol distributed copies of the paper to different booths.  The DB also recovered WhatsApp chat history and screen grabs proving that money exchanged hands between the criminals and jobseekers. "We are considering them as important evidence in the case," said a DB official.

At the briefing, DB Joint Commissioner Harun-or-Rashid said AUST could not avoid its responsibility for the question paper leak.

AUST Vice-Chancellor Prof Muhammad Fazli Ilahi said they suspended three of their staffers, including Muktaruzzaman, over the matter. "They were not part of any examination committee. We will launch an investigation into the incident," he said, adding that they would cooperate with police.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh Bank yesterday sought explanation from the private university in connection with the incident.

Md Serajul Islam, spokesperson for the central bank, said the BB sent a letter to AUST and asked it to reply within November 14.

The central bank will take the next step based on the reply, he added.