Each student is believed to have paid Rs 10 to Rs 30 lakh for getting access to the questions.
A few days before they appeared for the EAMCET- 2, a common entrance test for admission to medical and dental colleges, more than 70 students from Telangana caught flights out to Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kanigiri in Andhra Pradesh, in multiple batches, a police investigation has revealed.
In hotels in these cities, these students were allegedly handed question papers and their answers for the competitive examination that is conducted for seats in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
The students returned to their homes just before the exam and scored marks far better than their academic record would suggest, police sources said.
The police, who have arrested four people, believe each student paid 10 to 30 lakh rupees for getting access to the questions before the exam in a multi-crore scam.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has called a meeting today and is expected to be decided whether the examination will be held again. Parents have protested. "It is harrowing. They should just take out those found guilty and follow merit for the rest,'' a parent Eashwar Reddy said.
Student Akhileshwar Reddy said he too was contacted by agents. "They said I should pay 25 lakh rupees and they would take me to a secret location where I would get the question paper, along with the answers, before I sat for the exam,'' he told NDTV.
The police were first alerted by G. Ravi a civil engineer from Warangal, who noticed that some of his daughter's classmates had scored higher than her in the competitive exam even though she had consistently performed much better in class.
"I found out that these students had gone missing about five to six days before the exam. And then whoever had gone missing got surprisingly high marks,'' said Mr Ravi, 47.
One of those arrested, a Bengaluru-based man named Rajgopal Reddy, has allegedly told the police that he had also leaked question papers for a previous EAMCET exam held in May that included seats for agriculture and veterinary courses. Over a lakh students appeared for the first exam and about 50,000 appeared for this month's EAMCET-2 after confusion over national exam NEET.
The Telangana police is expected to make more arrests; the question paper, they believe, was leaked from a printing press in Delhi.