Visakhapatnam: The city police on Monday arrested seven persons, including the principal of a private degree college and and four BSc III students, for their alleged involvement in the leak of the BSc final year mathematics examination paper-III at the Andhra University on March 17.

AU officials received a WhatsApp message containing images of the leaked paper one hour before the exam was scheduled to begin. Following this, university registrar Prof. V. Umamaheswara Rao cancelled the examination 30 minutes after it began at 79 centres.

Among those arrested for the incident was Kuracha Suresh, 43, principal and chief superintendent of the Vidyarthi Degree College, Chodavaram.

The others held include Kuracha Santhosh, 27, a relative of the principal who also works as a computer operator in the college; mathematics lecturer from the college, Murali, and students Pasila Gunaji, 20; Bodi Demudu, 20; Puthi Thrinadh, 21; and Vijaya.

DCP (Law and Order) Naveen Gulati said that the BSc final year students of the college had approached the principal and his cousin Santosh a day before the examination and had asked them to leak the paper as they had not prepared for the examination. They said one of the mathematics lecturer had left midway during the year and they could not get full coaching.

Santhosh asked the students to come to the college around 9 am on March 16 with the examination being scheduled to begin at 2 pm.

Santosh allegedly provided the students with a photocopy of the examination paper by 9 am on March 16. The students then approached Murali, another mathematics lecturer of the college, to solve the paper. During that period Gunaji took a picture of the paper and uploaded and circulated it through WhatsApp.

The message ultimately reached the registrar 30 minutes before the examination. After checking it with the master copy, he called off the examination. Based on the complaint, inspector of Three-Town police station B. Venkata Rao and his team investigated the case and nabbed the accused, said Mr Gulati.