The ‘chappal’ is such it has an entire phone inside and a Bluetooth device

Jaipur:

Five people have been arrested for trying to cheat in an important exam for selecting teachers for government schools in Rajasthan. The candidates were found wearing “chappals” with Bluetooth devices fitted inside the sole, officials have said.

After the first person was caught cheating in Ajmer, the police soon found an entire cheating racket across the state involving candidates in the highly competitive Rajasthan Eligibility Examination for Teachers or REET. Similar chappals have been found with Bluetooth and mobile devices in Bikaner and Sikar.

“The chappal is such it has an entire phone inside and a Bluetooth device. The candidate had a device inside his ear and someone from outside the exam hall was helping him cheat,” police officer Ratan Lal Bhargav said.

The police are still unravelling this elaborate cheating plot, which appears to be a small-scale industry in itself. The “cheating chappals” were “cleverly manufactured” and some reports suggest could have been sold to candidates with the hardware for cheating for as much as Rs 2 lakh, sources have said.

The police said the Bluetooth chappal racket could turn out to be big

“We found one man with devices in his slippers to help him cheat. We caught him at the beginning of the exam. We are finding out where all he has links and who all are involved. We immediately alerted other districts as well. In the next phase of the exam, nobody can go in with slippers, shoes or socks into the exam centre,” Ajmer police officer Jagdish Chandra Sharma said.

Mobile internet and SMS were snapped in several districts of Rajasthan for 12 hours today to prevent cheating in the REET. Some 16 lakh students took the test for 31,000 posts in government schools.

A person needs to pass the REET to become a teacher in Rajasthan government schools.

Given the large number of candidate scheduled to take the REET, the state government made elaborate arrangements for security and travel with precautions amid the COVID-19 pandemic.