Kathmandu, January 29

Three persons facing the charge of leaking and selling IELTS test question papers were released on bail by Kathmandu District Court yesterday.

Metropolitan Police Range, Kathmandu, had filed a fraud case against Suraj Lama, 39, of Jhapa; Ganesh Raj Upadhyay, 20, of Haldkhel, Mahendranagar, Kanchanpur; and Bidhan Acharya, 20, of Chapakot, Syangja on the charge of leaking IELTS question papers, as per SP Ram Dutta Joshi, spokesperson at MPR. Police had produced the trio before the court on January 27. They were released yesterday after they paid a bail of Rs 100,00 each, said police.

On January 5, police had arrested 13 people, including IELTS examinees and members of an education consultancy from Sundhara, Kathmandu while they were buying and selling IELTS question papers. Police tallied the seized question papers with those provided to police by the British Council which were administered in the IELTS exam conducted the next day and found that almost all questions under the writing and listening sections were similar. This prompted the British Council to cancel that day’s IELTS examinations.

SP Joshi said during interrogation, the accused told that an Indian national named Honey Singh had sent the questions to them through Viber. “Police have almost completed their probe and now it’s for the court to give the final verdict in the case,” SP Joshi said.