LAHORE: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) claimed on Sunday to have arrested three people including two officers of the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) for their alleged involvement in leaking question papers of the Central Superior Services (CSS) examination.

The CSS exams are being held in 19 cities across the country including Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Quetta and Peshawar.

The FIA says a group of people would take hefty amount from candidates in exchange for the leaked paper hours before the examination was set to start.

According to the FIA, the agency received information about the CSS papers being leaked and sold. It constituted a team which conducted a raid at a house on Kacha Lines Road in Lahore and arrested Syed Tajjamul Hussain Naqvi, excise and taxation officer.

The team seized suspect’s mobile phone and on his pointation also arrested another suspect, Engineer Shahzad Sial. Both suspects confessed to their crime and revealed during interrogation that FPSC Balochistan Assistant Director Khalid Hussain Mugheri, Punjab Prison Department Assistant Superintendent Owais Sharif and Multan Regional Tax Office inspector Sajjad were also involved in leaking the papers.

The FIA has registered a case against the suspects and unidentified students at the Anti-Crime Circle police station in Lahore and begun investigation.

Officials said Sial told them that Mugheri would WhatsApp the paper an hour or two before the time to Naqvi in Lahore. Naqvi would then leak the paper and charge students hefty amounts for it. They said the papers had been leaked to almost 1,000 students.

The authorities also discovered that recently Rs980,000 was sent to Mugheri’s bank account in Multan through Sajjad. In the light of the evidence uncovered by the FIA’s Lahore team, the Quetta team arrested Mugheri and he would be sent to Lahore and his remand had been obtained.

Raids are being conducted to arrest others involved in this case.

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2019