Around 75 km from Ranchi, along the road that leads to Jamshedpur, lies a Rargaon village, which can be reached through a narrow stretch from the national highway. Away from the inhabited part of the village, in a large and isolated plot of land, is a three-storey under-construction building that is purportedly being built to house a private nursing college.This was the building that the Jharkhand Police raided hours before the Jharkhand Excise Constable Competitive Examination (JECCE) took place, leading to the arrest of 166 people. Of these, 159 were job aspirants, and the others were allegedly linked to a “solver gang” that promised to teach candidates the answers to questions that they claimed would come up in the exam, police said. The exam, however, took place as scheduled on Sunday, with police and the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission (JSSC) saying there was no paper leak and that the questions and answers the gang gave the aspirants did not match the exam question paper.When The Indian Express visited the building on Monday, construction workers at the spot said over 150 people had been brought there on Saturday morning in several vehicles. They were kept there through the day and night before police arrived at the spot. Away from the inhabited part of the village, in a large and isolated plot of land, is a three-storey under-construction building that is purportedly being built to house a private nursing college.The building stands on a plot of land spread across nearly 40 bigha (25 acres) at a location where there is little habitation within a 3-km radius. It is surrounded by trees and fields in all directions, and residents of Rargaon had little idea of the operation unfolding inside.Only the basic framework of the building has been constructed so far. A machine to lift construction material from the ground to the second floor has been installed, and construction workers said that while they were earlier told that slab casting work was supposed to take place over Friday, Saturday and Sunday, they were later informed that this had been postponed.‘Rs 10 lakh per candidate’Late on Saturday night, a police team from Tamar police station reached the under-construction building.After cordoning the premises, the police team entered the building and moved to the first floor, where they saw over 150 young people, including seven girls, sitting on the floor in rows.Story continues below this ad Away from the inhabited part of the village, in a large and isolated plot of land, is a three-storey under-construction building that is purportedly being built to house a private nursing college.What they uncovered next, they alleged, pointed to a well-organised examination fraud.Ranchi police, along with the Ranchi Deputy Commissioner and Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission (JSSC) chairperson Prashant Kumar, detailed the findings in a joint press conference on Sunday evening. According to the FIR, the students were gathered there since early Saturday and were allegedly being provided what the accused told them were leaked question papers of the upcoming Excise Constable examination, after which they were made to memorise answers.Investigators said the operation was run by a network that charged up to Rs 10 lakh per candidate — Rs 3 lakh in advance and the remaining after the results.In the police operation that started at night and continued into the early hours of Sunday, police said 164 persons were arrested from the spot, including 159 candidates and five members of the alleged gang. Later, two more people were arrested in connection with the case.Story continues below this adAn FIR was registered at Tamar police station, and police also seized multiple vehicles, mobile phones, printed material, torn admit cards and other documents from the site.At the spotPolice said the under-construction property was owned by a man identified as Gaurav Singh. Ranchi Senior Superintendent of Police Rakesh Ranjan said Singh was on the run and that he would be apprehended soon. The Indian Express called Singh’s phone number and found that it was switched off.Construction workers at the site said they had little knowledge of what was going on inside until the police raid. Away from the inhabited part of the village, in a large and isolated plot of land, is a three-storey under-construction building that is purportedly being built to house a private nursing college.Murshidabad-resident Ghayasuddin, a construction worker and caretaker at the site, has been working there for over a year. He told The Indian Express that for the past four to five days, some of the accused had been frequenting the premises. “We informed the contractor that these people were coming and going, but we were told nothing. We are workers from outside, and we don’t know what is happening,” he claimed.Story continues below this adAccording to him, on Saturday morning, vehicles began ferrying groups of candidates to the site in multiple trips. “By afternoon, all of them were inside,” he said.Another worker, Aslam, said the group remained inside the building throughout the day. “We don’t know how they were managing food, but a large quantity of bananas had been brought. They were eating that. The main accused also came and ate with us when we were cooking chicken,” he said.Both workers said they sensed something unusual but did not intervene. “At around 10 to 10.30 at night, suddenly 30 to 40 police vehicles came and surrounded the place,” Aslam said, adding, “We were inside our room. Police told most of us to leave.”Ghayasuddin and Aslam were initially detained and later released following questioning.Story continues below this adThe village head, Durga Oraon, said he had no prior information about the activities at the site. “No one informed us. Police also did not contact me before the raid. We only came to know after it happened,” he said. “Vehicles keep coming and going to the site, so no one paid attention. Also, no one from the village was ever allowed to enter that building.”Among those arrested was Atul Vats, police said, identifying him as a resident of Bihar’s Jehanabad district who is allegedly the kingpin of an interstate racket. According to an officer, Vats has a history of involvement in multiple examination-related cases across states, including alleged links to the NEET paper leak of 2024, the Bihar Community Health Officer recruitment exam the same year, the Uttar Pradesh Police recruitment exam of 2024, and a clerk recruitment exam in Rajasthan in 2017. Police said efforts are on to verify the criminal antecedents of the other accused.No leak, claim officials. Doesn’t add up, says BJPThe incident has led the BJP to allege that police were too quick to make conclusions about the case. BJP spokesperson Pratul Shah Deo told The Indian Express, “It seems Jharkhand Police has become more efficient than Scotland Yard. Within four hours, they completed the entire investigation and gave a clean chit, saying there was no paper leak.”Story continues below this adSuggesting that police’s findings were aimed at “cooling down” a potentially volatile situation involving lakhs of candidates, he said, “If there were multiple sets of question papers, why has the police spoken about only some of them? Why not put everything in the public domain?” He also questioned police’s timeline of events, saying, “The sequence does not add up.”Calling for a wider probe, he claimed that the racket involved large-scale financial transactions. “Around Rs 20–23 crore could be involved. This needs a CBI and ED investigation to trace where the money went and how the network operated,” he said.Ranchi SSP Rakesh Ranjan said it was unlikely that there was a major paper leak and claimed that the network invovled in the incident had been dismantled.The district administration and the JSSC have also maintained that this was not a case of a question paper leak, but rather a fraud being carried out. Officials said the question paper from Sunday’s exam did not match those being used by the accused. They described the operation as a “solver gang scam”, estimating the scale of the fraud to be over Rs 20 crore, based on the number of candidates involved and the money allegedly collected.Story continues below this adAll 159 arrested candidates have been barred by the JSSC from the examination process.All accused were produced before a Ranchi court on Sunday, police said. The counsel for the aspirants, Amlan Palit, described his clients as victims and claimed that the police had not shown any proof of cash transfer. “Why are all the students facing the same charges that are imposed on the main accused?” he asked.