Those arrested included members of three gangs, including a forest department and a health department technician.

Cheating In Ongoing Police Constable Recruitment Exam: The ongoing police constable recruitment examination in the Ballia district of Uttar Pradesh was marred by an incident of cheating as the police have arrested 14 people for allegedly using unfair means, said the officials on Sunday adding that these 14 people included 11 members of three gangs, including a forest department and a health department technician, and three men allegedly posing as aspirants in the exam.

Superintendent of Police of Ballia Dev Ranjan Verma said that police have busted three gangs that were allegedly trying to disrupt the ongoing police constable recruitment examination and arrested 14 people.

Dev Ranjan Verma said that among those arrested were Abhay Kumar Srivastava, a lab technician in the health department in Sultanpur district, and Fatehbahadur Rajbhar, a constable in the forest department in the Katni district of Madhya Pradesh.

Three persons, who were allegedly appearing for the exams in place of the registered candidates were also arrested.

Three persons were arrested from the Gonda district in connection to the constable recruitment process, including one for posing as a candidate.

Kundan Kumar Chaudhary, a resident of Nalanda district of Bihar, was arrested on Saturday evening with the help of the local police at an examination centre in Nawabganj town, Gonda Superintendent of Police Vineet Jaiswal said. He was giving the test in place of Tanmay Singh, a resident of Mankapur police station area of the district.

Vineet Jaiswal said that both Tanmay and Harendra Kumar had applied for the constable recruitment process and were arrested on Sunday adding that a deal had been finalised between Chaudhary and the two candidates for Rs 6 lakh. He was taking the exam in place of Tanmay at an examination centre in Nawabganj in the second shift on Saturday and was to take the exam in place of Harendra on Sunday at another centre in Gonda city.

Jaiswal added that a case has been registered against the three in Nawabganj police station.

Across Uttar Pradesh, 122 people have been arrested in the last two days for posing as candidates in the police constable recruitment examination and cheating. This was revealed by the officials on Saturday.

Director General of Police (DGP) Prashant Kumar on Saturday had said that among the 122 arrested in total, 15 were nabbed in Etah, nine each in Mau, Prayagraj and Siddharthanagar, eight in Ghazipur, seven in Azamgarh, six in Gorakhpur, five in Jaunpur, four in Firozabad, three each in Kaushambi and Hathras, two each in Jhansi, Varanasi, Agra and Kanpur, and one each in Ballia, Deoria and Bijnor.

DGP Prashant Kumar conducted a surprise inspection at two examination centres in the Gomtinagar area of Lucknow and said that more than 48 lakh candidates are taking the examination being held in two shifts on February 17-18.

(With PTI inputs)