PATNA: Bihar Staff Selection Commission (BSSC) chairman Sudhir Kumar , a 1987-batch IAS official, was on Friday arrested for his alleged involvement in the job scam that rocked the state earlier this month. He was later forwarded to Beur Central Jail on the outskirts of Patna.The bureaucrat's brother Awadesh Kumar and sister's son Ashish Kumar along with Awadhesh's wife Manju Devi were also nabbed. Awadhesh is a Geography professor in premier Patna Women's College."We have also taken into custody Ashish's friend Sajjad Ahmed and BSSC's IT manager Niti Pratap Singh," said Patna SSP Manu Maharaaj, who is heading a special investigation team (SIT) formed at CM Nitish Kumar 's behest to probe the leakage of questions for the four-phase examinations for filling 13,120 Intermediate-level clerical vacancies.The examinations, scheduled in January-February this year, were scrapped after the questions started doing rounds on WhatsApp."We have evidence to suggest the IAS official made available two sets of question papers and answer keys to his five kin. They were among the 18.5 lakh job aspirants who had applied for the examinations," Maharaaj told newsmen.Sources said police had procured a warrant of arrest from a Patna court against the bureaucrat on Thursday after he misled them about the question setter and the location of the printing press where the questions were printed.During two rounds of interrogation earlier, Sudhir told the SIT that the questions had been set by an IIT-Delhi professor. "Our inquiries revealed the professor didn't set questions," a police officer said, adding Sudhir after the second round of quizzing went on a three-day leave since Monday, and did not resume duty on Thursday.According to the sources, Ashish wrote the exam during the first phase on January 29. He told interrogators he had answered 135 of the 150 questions correctly and deliberately gave wrong answers to 15 questions.Ashish accepted before newsmen that the questions and answer keys had been provided to him and others in Hazaribagh by maternal uncle Sudhir.Incidentally, the Bihar IAS Officers' Association has alleged Sudhir was arrested from his in-laws' home in Hazaribagh, a charge the SIT has denied. "Kumar's involvement has been corroborated by the arrested conspirators, including BSSC secretary Parmeshwar Ram," another police officer said, adding call detail records also point to Sudhir's involvement in the scam.With the arrest of Sudhir, the number of arrests in connection with the scam has gone up to 34, including a government clerk and schoolteacher, a railways' loco pilot and several coaching institute proprietors.

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