Police have unravelled the recruitment exam question leak from Biman Bangladesh headquarters, where the questions were digitally duplicated and sent out in return for money.
The Detective Branch of Dhaka Metropolitan Police traced the scandal to the office of the director of administration and discovered that some office workers and the driver of Biman’s Managing Director Zahid Hossain, also the director of administration, were linked to the leak.
The suspects took photos of the question paper while copies were made on a photocopier, DB chief Harunor Rashid said at a media briefing on Thursday.
“We are assisting the probe and carrying out an administrative investigation. All I want to say is, the allegations of the question being leaked from the MD’s office are incorrect. The rooms of the administrative director and MD are separate. One is on the second floor and the other on the first.”
An hour-long MCQ exam scheduled for Oct 21 was suspended after the authorities arrested five low-level employees of the state-owned carrier over the leak. As many as 10 others were arrested in a case filed under the Digital Security Act with the airport police. Nine of them have testified in court.
The arrestees are Awlad Hossain, 21, Jahangir Alam, 36, Enamul Haque, 28, Harun-ur-Rashid, 40, Mahfuzul Haque, 31, Md Masud, 34, Zahid Hasan, 28, Samaju aka Sobhan, 30, Jabed Hossain, 28, and Zakir Hossain. Five of them have been suspended.
Police recovered Tk 150,000, 32 cheques from banks, 17 non-judicial stamps, three diaries, copies of the leaked questions and admittance cards from 54 candidates. The Biman MD’s driver Mahabub Ali is on the run.
Zahid Hasan, a member of the lower subordinate staff, often abbreviated as MLSS in government offices, was tasked with copying the question paper on a photocopier in the office of the director of administration. He took photos of either side of the question paper and sent them to his colleague Samaju and they leaked the images out in return for money.
The general manager of administration was in charge of preparing the question paper, reports bdnews24.com.
On the alleged involvement of the MD and GM in the leak, Harunor said they were tasked with formulating the questions, carrying out proper searches of the employees involved in it and watching over the whole process. “But they failed to do so. So they were to blame for the leak,” he said.
“We’ve spoken with the high officials and were told that none of those involved would get away with it,” he said.
The police detectives uncovered transactions amounting to Tk 5.0 million.