The Himachal Pradesh government on Friday cancelled HP Police constable recruitment examination after four including three candidates were arrested for cheating in written test that was held on 27 March this year.

Informing about this, Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur said the written test for recruitment of constables in HP Police conducted on 27 March, 2022 in all the districts has been scrapped following certain doubts regarding conduct of the test.

Thakur stated that an FIR has been registered under Sections 420 and 120-B IPC in Police Station Gaggal of Kangra district.

An investigation in this case would be conducted by an SIT headed by DIG, Central Range, Mandi Madhu Sudhan. The Commandant 1st IR Battalion Vimukt Rajan, SP Cyber Crime Rohit Malpani, SP Kangra Kushal Chand Sharma and SP Crime Virender Kalia would be Members of SIT, he added.

The Chief Minister said that the ongoing process of document evaluation has been stopped with immediate effect. The state government was committed to ensure fairness and transparency in the recruitment process. the next written examination for recruitment of constables will be conducted by the end of this month so that candidates do not face any inconvenience, he further stated.

It is worth mentioning here that around 74,000 candidates had appeared for recruitment to the 1,334 posts of constables including 932 males, 311 females and 94 male constables for driver posts at 81 examination centers in 11 districts.

The examination was held on 27 March and the result of the written test was declared on 5 April.

The cheating had come to light during the process of scrutiny of documents of the candidates in which it was found that three candidates had secured 70 marks each out of the total 90 marks. However, their aggregate total of the marks obtained in matric examination was less than 50 per cent which raised suspicion.

The trio were questioned by the cops on the anomaly and they broke down during the interrogation and allegedly admitted to cheating.

They allegedly admitted that they had paid a sum of Rs 6-8 lakh for answers of the examination and they were asked to memorise these.

The police will now conduct investigation on financial as well as racket angle, however, the government made it clear that the written examination will now be held by the end of this month to complete the recruitment process at the earliest.