Seventeen candidates were caught cheating using Bluetooth devices during the Navodaya Vidyalaya lab attendant recruitment exam held in Dehradun. The exam, conducted by the CBSE board in two shifts across two schools—Social Baluni Public School in Patel Nagar and Doon International School in Dalanwala—witnessed large-scale malpractice involving external support through hidden devices.
According to SSP Ajay Singh, the fraud was first detected during the morning shift when a candidate at Social Baluni Public School was found with a suspicious electronic device hidden in his shoe. The device turned out to be a Bluetooth receiver. The candidate, identified as Saurabh Yadav from Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, was immediately taken into custody.
Following this incident, police intensified checks for the second shift at the same centre and apprehended seven more candidates with similar devices. Simultaneously, a raid was conducted at Doon International School where nine more candidates were caught with Bluetooth equipment. A total of 17 Bluetooth devices were recovered, and three separate FIRs have been filed—two in Patel Nagar and one in Dalanwala.
Initial interrogation points to the involvement of an organised solver gang operating from outside Dehradun. Police suspect that these external operatives were providing real-time answers via the Bluetooth devices. Several police teams have been deployed to locations in Uttar Pradesh and other states to trace the origin and network of this gang. The recovered devices have been sent for forensic examination, and further arrests are likely.
