Jaipur: The Special Operations Group (SOG) of Rajasthan Police Wednesday arrested a 31-year-old man who allegedly appeared as a dummy candidate in place of an original applicant in the Assistant Engineer (Civil) examination conducted by the Rajasthan Public Service Commission (RPSC) in 2022, officials said.Additional director general of police (SOG) Vishal Bansal said the accused was identified as Gurdeep Das, who appeared in place of Indraj Singh in the exam. The exam was conducted on May 21, 2023. Investigators found that Singh allegedly tampered with the admit card on the attendance sheet by affixing another person’s photograph and arranged for a dummy candidate to write the examination.SOG registered a case in 2024, and an investigation was initiated. Earlier, Singh and two of his associates were arrested, and a chargesheet was filed in court last year.During further investigation, the absconding dummy candidate, Das, a resident of Hisar district in Haryana, was traced and arrested. SOG announced a reward of Rs 25,000 for information leading to his arrest.Officials said Das was located in Haryana by a team led by a police inspector and was subsequently arrested by SOG.Preliminary interrogation revealed that the accused allegedly used a Bluetooth device to receive external assistance during the exam, enabling the original candidate to gain undue advantage, police said.Officials said the arrested accused does not hold any engineering degree and passed only Class 12, raising suspicion of a possible paper leak in the examination.Police also found that Singh held a degree in electrical engineering but applied for the civil engineering post. Police said Das has 7 criminal cases registered against him, including 3 in Haryana and 4 in Rajasthan, some of which relate to impersonation in examinations.
