Overview

• Odisha Police detained Nihar Mohanty, vice-president of the Board of Secondary Education, on August 3 for alleged collusion in the leak of the special OTET-2025 question paper, bringing total arrests to eight.
• Investigators found that Mohanty violated protocol by retaining the confidential exam paper on his laptop after proofreading and granting unauthorized access to data entry operator Jitan Moharana.
• Moharana first circulated the handwritten question paper to brokers, who shared it online on July 19 and forced the postponement of the July 20 exam.
• Crime Branch records show Mohanty held more than 100 telephone conversations with Moharana outside official hours over a three-month span.
• Authorities have opened a parallel financial investigation into suspicious payments as they seek to uncover any additional accomplices in the paper-leak network.