Karnataka PSI exam scam: CID questions ADGP who headed recruitment cell

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Karnataka police, which is investigating the police sub-inspectors' (PSI) recruitment scam in the state, has questioned a senior police official who headed the Karnataka police recruitment cell for the last two years.
Police sources said that Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Amrit Paul has been questioned by CID officials over the police recruitment exam scam where over 30 candidates who obtained the top ranks were found to have indulged in malpractices with the help of middlemen and police officials.
The Karnataka government had on April 27 ordered the transfer of ADGP Paul, who was the chairman of the PSI recruitment committee. Soon after his transfer, the senior police officer was admitted to a local hospital.
The questioning of the ADGP rank officer was initiated following the arrest of another police officer from the recruitment cell, Deputy Superintendent of Police Shantaraju, earlier this month. Shantaraju, who had served in the recruitment cell for over 15 years, had earlier been transferred out along with the ADGP Paul.
The rigging of the PSI recruitment exam held on October 3, 2021, to select 545 candidates from among 54,287 test aspirants is alleged to have occurred at many levels with the connivance of the police recruitment cell.
One reason why the recruitment cell in Bengaluru has come under scrutiny is the fact that the allotment of examination centres for candidates aspiring to be PSIs was done centrally by the recruitment cell. The CID probe has also found that the OMR (optical mark recognition) sheets for the objective questions in the exam were also modified after answer papers were received at the recruitment cell in Bengaluru.
The CID investigations in the PSI recruitment scam have revealed that as many as 12 of 107 candidates who were selected through a written and objective exam on October 3, 2021, from the Kalyana Karnataka region appeared for the exam at the Jnana Jyothi English School run by a former Kalaburagi BJP functionary Divya Hagaragi and her husband Rajesh.