Jaipur, February 29 : The Special Operations Group (SOG), Rajasthan, on Thursday arrested Jagdish Vishnoi, the mastermind behind the JEN recruitment exam paper leak case.

The accused, who was absconding for the last three years, was arrested over a dozen times earlier in different paper leak cases, said V.K. Singh, ADG, ATS and SOG.

Singh informed that Jagdish used to operate the entire gang in an organised manner.

'He was the leader of the paper leak gang, which included patwari Harshvardhan Meena, school teacher Rajendra Kumar Yadav and other criminals."

Jagdish had leaked the paper along with his colleague Yadav at the Major Digvijay Singh Suman Government Higher Secondary School, Khatipura, Jaipur.

He also gave Rs 10 lakh to Yadav. The paper was sent to gang member Harshvardhan Meena on WhatsApp, who then sold it elsewhere.

Till now, 30 accused persons have been arrested in this case, and the numbers are expected to go up.

Jagdish was involved in this crime in an organised way for the past over 15 years, said the officer, adding, 'He was detained from the Jawahar Kala Kendra on Wednesday, and was arrested on Thursday after a thorough investigation."

His accomplices, Harshvardhan and Rajendra Yadav, were arrested earlier.

The SOG teams raided 14 locations in Jaipur, Dausa and Bharatpur, from where diaries and documents related to different exams were seized.

These include more than seven locations of Harshvardhan in Dausa-Mahva, Jaipur, and Bharatpur. The residence of Rajendra Yadav and his associate were also raided. Harshvardhan's property worth Rs 5.71 crore and Rajendra's property worth Rs 15 crore have been sealed.

/IANS