Vadodara: Desperate times call for desperate measures. The saying got an entirely new meaning in the fraudulent actions of a Railway job aspirant from Bihar. Police said that the incident took place in Vadodara where candidate Manish Kumar tried to clear the examination by using his friend Rajyaguru Gupta as a proxy.
They also said that since Gupta was good at studies, Kumar decided to use him as a proxy. Gupta decided to execute his plan a day before the examination which was scheduled to be held on August 22.
Being aware that biometric verification will be done at the examination centre for a recruitment test for railway 'D' group vacancies, Kumar put his left thumb on a hot cooking pan which resulted in a blister. He then peeled the skin off with a blade and pasted it on Gupta's left thumb.
However, the plan was foiled when the biometric device at the examination centre failed to register the thumb impression of a candidate "Manish Kumar" despite repeated attempts.
"To prevent any sort of cheating, all the candidates were required to give their thumb impression, which was then matched with their Aadhaar data through a biometric device before the test. At that time, the device failed to register the thumb impression of a candidate named Manish Kumar despite repeated attempts," said Additional Commissioner of Police S M Varotariya said.
He also said that the supervisor grew suspicious as he observed the candidate trying to hide something by putting his left hand inside the pocket of his pants. "When the supervisor sprayed sanitiser on his left thumb, the skin pasted on it fell off," the official said.
After learning about the cheating, the agency, authorised by the Railways to conduct the test, the agency called the police and lodged a complaint under Indian Penal Code Sections 465 (forgery), 419 (cheating by impersonation) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy), he said adding that both Kumar and Gupta were arrested.
