Hyderabad: The Telangana Crime Investigation Department (CID) claims to have unravelled a racket behind the leak of exam question papers for the medical admission test held under the Engineering, Agriculture and Medical Common Entrance Test (Eamcet II) earlier this month. Seven people have been arrested in this connection.

Three persons, including a Delhi-based printing press worker Shaikh Nishad, a Mumbai-based broker Guddu, and a coaching academy owner Venkat Rao, were arrested in Bengaluru on Wednesday night and were brought to Hyderabad for further questioning.

According to the CID officials, a repeat offender, Rajagopal Reddy from Bengaluru, was the kingpin behind the racket and had got the exam papers leaked from a Delhi printing press in complicity with six middlemen.

State director general of police Anurag Sharma held a review meeting with the officials of CID to finalise the report.

Earlier the CID had arrested four persons, including three students, for their involvement in the conspiracy.

In the report submitted to the Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, the CID said that Rs150 million (Dh8.1 million) was paid to those who leaked the exam paper. Every candidate buying a leaked question paper had to pay Rs3 million to Rs5 million. After receiving an advance of Rs1 million from each student, the racketeers would hand them the question paper 48 hours before the common entrance test.

CID officials say that atleast 30 students benefited form the leak of the question paper and they were given special coaching in different places including Resonance Medical Academy at LB Nagar in Hyderabad.

While girl students were coached at LB Nagar, the boys were taken to Bengaluru and Mumbai for special coaching on the basis of the leaked question paper and brought back to their respective centres a few hours before the test.

The remaining payment from the students was recovered after the results and ranks were announced. During the probe so far, the CID has also come another startling conclusion that the question paper of 2014 Eamcet was also leaked.

As the Eamcet was organised by the Jawaharlal Nehru Technology University, the CID officials were also investigating the possibility of the involvement of some of the officials of the university.

Meanwhile deputy Chief Minister K. Srihari has vowed that those responsible for the paper leak will face stringent punishment. “But we will also ensure that the meritorious students who worked hard are not made to suffer,” he added.

Speaking to anxious students and their parents who met him in Warangal today, Srihari asked them not to worry saying that the government will take care that meritorious students are not adversely affected.

There had been speculation that the government would scrap the Eamcet II and order a fresh test in the wake of the CID report.