Hyderabad, Mar 23 (PTI) Three more persons, including a woman, were arrested by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) for their alleged role in the leak of certain TSPSC exams' question papers, police said on Thursday.

Two among the arrested are employees of the Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) while the third person is a former outsourcing employee, they said.

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With the latest arrests, the total number of persons held for allegedly leaking question papers rose to 12.

The three persons arrested today had cleared the Group-I preliminary exam (held in October last year) and scored more than 100 marks with the help of two accused who were arrested earlier, police said adding, “The trio were party to the leak of Group-I preliminary exam."

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The SIT of Hyderabad Police, which took over the investigations into the case, arrested three more accused during its ongoing probe to ascertain if there are any more people involved in the case and whether any other question papers had also been leaked.

Nine people, including an Assistant Section Officer in the TSPSC, a contract employee of TSPSC, two candidates and a police constable, were arrested on March 13 over their alleged involvement in the data breach -- for stealing and leaking TSPSC's Assistant Engineer (Civil) examination question paper. The SIT subsequently took the nine accused into custody as part of further investigation.

The Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) on March 15 cancelled the Assistant Engineers (AE) exam held on March 5, following allegations that the question paper had been leaked.

Amid protests by opposition parties and students' groups in the past several days over the alleged question paper leak, the Commission on March 17 cancelled the Group-I preliminary exam and two other tests as well.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)