Jaipur: The Special Operations Group (SOG) on Tuesday arrested the technical head of the Rajasthan Staff Selection Board (RSMSSB) and four others for allegedly manipulating the results of multiple competitive recruitment examinations, officials said.

The arrests are linked to large-scale irregularities in the Supervisor (Women Empowerment), Laboratory Assistant and Agriculture Supervisor recruitment exams, for which over 9.4 lakh candidates had applied for 3,212 posts, Additional Director General of Police (SOG) Vishal Bansal told reporters here.

Those arrested include Sanjay Mathur, then deputy director and system analyst-cum-programmer of the board, who also served as technical in-charge of the examination process. The other accused have been identified as Shadan Khan, Vinod Kumar Gaur, Poonam Mathur and Praveen Gangwal, a programmer with the board.

Bansal said the examinations were conducted in 2019 and the confidential work of scanning OMR sheets and data processing had been outsourced to a Delhi-based firm.

During the probe, it was found that after scanning, OMR data was allegedly tampered with at the computer level to illegally inflate the marks of select candidates, allowing ineligible aspirants to qualify.

The irregularities surfaced after the board ordered re-scanning of original OMR sheets, revealing serious discrepancies between actual and final marks, police said.

Investigators alleged that Mathur abused his official position and colluded with employees of the outsourced firm and others to alter scanned data using photo-editing tools. In some cases, candidates who had scored between 30 and 60 marks were allegedly shown as securing over 180 marks.

Police also claimed that the key accused were members of an internal committee set up by the board to examine the irregularities, allegedly to influence the inquiry, and received large sums of money through middlemen.

Further investigation is underway.