A massive cheating scandal has rocked the pharmacist officer recruitment examination conducted by the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) on Jattvibeday. In a swiftly coordinated crackdown across 25 examination centres in Faridkot, Kotkapura and Ferozepur, the Punjab Police dismantled an organised, high-tech cheating network, detaining 28 candidates and arresting seven key conspirators.​The Punjab Health and Family Welfare Department had recently entrusted BFUHS with the recruitment process for 454 Pharmacist Officer posts. Around 7,000 aspirants were scheduled to sit for the 90-mark written test, held from 11 am to 1 pm.​While the test began smoothly, the counter-intelligence wing of the police intercepted information mid-exam about a sophisticated network transmitting answers in real-time.​According to the police, the breach occurred entirely in real-time after the exam commenced; investigators explicitly clarified that there was no advance leak of the question paper and no involvement of any official authority has been found so far.​The operation relied on high-tech corporate-level logistics, claimed the police. Between 11:10 am and 11:25 am, a candidate identified as Ayush, appearing at a centre in Ferozepur, used a concealed pen camera to scan the question paper. He transmitted the images via WhatsApp to an accomplice, Sajan, located in Bhiwani, Haryana, the police revealed.Sajan forwarded the question paper to an operative named Deepak, who was stationed at a makeshift control room set up inside a residence in Society Nagar, Faridkot.From this control room, the key accused, Manjit Singh and Deepak, solved the paper and dictated the answers in real-time over mobile frequencies to candidates inside the exam halls wearing specialized, battery-operated wireless micro-devices.​Investigations revealed that the racket operated with calculated precision. On the morning of the exam, several operatives met at a hotel on the Faridkot-Kotkapura Road to distribute the micro-Bluetooth devices to the compromised candidates.​The gang charged desperate candidates exorbitant sums ranging between Rs 3.5 Lakh and Rs 13 Lakh to guarantee passing marks. To secure these payments, several candidates had already handed over Post-Dated Cheques (PDCs) to the scammers as financial security.​Preliminary investigations point to Gurmeet Singh—an employee at the Sant Kabir Polytechnic College in Fazilka—as the mastermind behind the entire operation. The control room in Society Nagar was operating directly out of his residence.​So far, police teams have successfully recovered 27 battery-operated wireless cheating devices. Out of the 28 candidates caught using these devices, 6 were rounded up in Kotkapura, while 11 each were detained in Faridkot and Ferozepur. Some compromised candidates reportedly managed to give a slip to the authorities before the halls were completely sealed at 12:30 pm.​”Police have received formal complaints from the exam centre supervisors. We are currently interrogating the 7 key conspirators and the detained candidates to unearth deeper links, and the process of registering a First Information Report (FIR) is underway,” said Tarlochan Singh, DSP Faridkot.Candidate ordeal amid lockdownIt turned out to be a grueling day for thousands of innocent candidates who had traveled from different parts of the state.While the test was officially scheduled to conclude at 1:30 pm, the intensive, center-wide police searches meant that candidates were locked inside and not allowed to leave the premises until 3 pm.This left thousands stranded inside the halls, hungry and thirsty amid hot and humid weather conditions.