Bhubaneswar: The Crime Branch has arrested the vice president of the Board of Secondary Education (BSE), Odisha, in connection with the Odisha Teacher Eligibility Test (OTET) 2025 question paper leak case. The Crime Branch conducted a marathon interrogation of BSE vice president Nihar Mohanty on Saturday. The question papers were allegedly leaked from Mohanty’s laptop in his office. The Crime Branch has also seized the laptop.
The arrest was confirmed by Crime Branch DG Vinaytosh Mishra at a press conference. “During the investigation, clear-cut negligence was found, in which vice president Nihar Mohanty was involved. Mohanty had abnormal telephonic conversations with data entry operator Jitan Maharana, who was arrested earlier. Maharana had no role in the conduct of the examination. Still, the vice president had deliberately given him laptop access, which helped him leak the question paper. So, both have an equal role in the question leak case,” the Crime Branch DG said.
The Crime Branch had earlier arrested seven persons, including Jitan Maharana and a government upper primary school teacher, Prasant Kumar Khamari. Khamari, a teacher at Bhejipadar in Bhawanipatna, allegedly enticed gullible candidates who had failed in the last Special OTET examination and sold them the papers to make easy money. It was found that he transferred Rs 99,000 through PhonePe to Bijay Kumar Mishra after collecting cash from the candidates.
The six other accused who were arrested earlier include Jitan Maharana, a Data Entry Operator at BSE Cuttack; Bijay Kumar Mishra, the Working President of State Ex-Cadre Teacher Association; Sanatan Bisoi, President of Ex-Cadre Teachers Association of Koraput District; Ram Jee Prasad Gupta; Ajay Kumar Sahoo; and Jayant Kumar Rout. They were produced before the JMFC-III court in Cuttack.
