The Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force has uncovered a major examination-rigging racket allegedly involved in manipulating Staff Selection Commission (SSC) recruitment examinations by promising candidates guaranteed success in exchange for payments of nearly Rs 4 lakh per person. During a raid conducted at an examination centre in Greater Noida, officials arrested seven accused, including the alleged mastermind behind the operation, and recovered approximately Rs 50 lakh in cash along with laptops, mobile phones, and several examination-related documents.
According to STF officials, the gang was involved in tampering with online recruitment examinations conducted for the Central Armed Police Forces, Secretariat Security Force Constable GD recruitment, and the Assam Rifles Rifleman Examination-2026.
Investigators said the accused used advanced technical methods to bypass the online examination system and provide candidates with correct answers in real time while they were appearing for the exams.
The arrests were made after the STF received intelligence inputs regarding organised cheating activities linked to SSC online examinations being conducted in the region. Following the information, officials launched a covert investigation that eventually led them to an examination centre known as “Balaji Digital Zone,” located in the Knowledge Park area of Greater Noida.
On May 22, STF teams conducted a raid at the centre and arrested seven individuals identified as Pradeep Chauhan, Arun Kumar, Sandeep Bhati, Nishant Raghav, Amit Rana, Shakir Malik, and Vivek Kumar.
Officials stated that the accused did not directly hack into the SSC examination system itself. Instead, investigators alleged that the gang installed a proxy server at the examination centre by bypassing the authorised company server infrastructure.
According to the STF, the accused used a screen-sharing viewer application to secretly transmit examination questions to external “solvers” stationed outside the centre. These solvers would reportedly solve the questions remotely and then relay the correct answers back to candidates appearing for the examination inside the centre.
Police officials said the system allowed candidates to receive answers during the exam without directly accessing the official examination servers, making the cheating operation technically sophisticated and difficult to detect immediately.
Investigators alleged that Pradeep Chauhan had been operating the cheating racket for a long period and was responsible for setting up the examination centre where SSC online tests were conducted through the company Eduquity.
Meanwhile, Arun Kumar was allegedly responsible for managing the technical infrastructure of the operation, including installing and operating the proxy server systems used to facilitate the cheating network.
During the raid, STF teams reportedly recovered around Rs 50 lakh in cash along with several laptops, mobile phones, technical devices, and documents linked to SSC recruitment examinations. Authorities believe the recovered materials may help uncover a much larger organised network operating across multiple examination centres.
The development comes at a time when concerns regarding the integrity of competitive examinations in India are already under intense public scrutiny following the controversy surrounding the alleged NEET-UG 2026 paper leak controversy.
The NEET controversy triggered widespread criticism and protests across the country after reports surfaced claiming that question papers had allegedly been leaked before the examination. Students, parents, and opposition parties had raised concerns regarding the increasing role of organised cheating syndicates in national-level examinations.
The latest SSC examination racket has once again highlighted vulnerabilities in large-scale online recruitment systems and the growing use of sophisticated technical methods by organised criminal groups.
The STF has now launched a wider investigation into the network behind the operation. Officials are expected to examine whether technical experts, middlemen, coaching operators, or additional examination centre personnel were also involved in facilitating the cheating system.
Investigators are additionally probing whether similar proxy server-based techniques may have been used in other recruitment examinations conducted in recent years across different states.
Authorities are also likely to scrutinise the role of examination infrastructure providers and digital security systems to determine how such sophisticated manipulation was allowed to occur within highly sensitive government recruitment examinations.
The case is expected to intensify demands for stricter cybersecurity measures, tighter monitoring of examination centres, and stronger safeguards against organised cheating networks operating in India’s competitive examination ecosystem.
