Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Safeer Karim who was caught cheating during the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) main examination on Monday has been remanded to judicial custody.
Chennai police arrests IPS officer for cheating during UPSC Mains; here's how he was cheating
The IPS officer was nabbed a few minutes after he started writing his exam.
His wife, Joicy Joyce, who was giving him the answers via a Bluetooth earpiece, has also been arrested from Hyderabad.
Who is Karim
Karim, who hails from Aluva in Kerala, is a 2015 batch police officer.
Before joining the civil services, the accused had studied electronic engineering from the MET's School of Engineering in Mala, Thrissur district of Kerala.
He did his schooling from Model Technical Higher Secondary School.
Karim decided to join the police force around two years ago after being inspired by a police officer's character in a 1994 Malayalam movie, 'Commissioner'.
The accused officer was posted as ASP training in Nanguneri subdivision in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu.
What comes as a bigger shock is that the accused officer is the founder of Karim's IAS & IPS Coaching Centre, which trains civil service candidates and has branches in Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram. He set up the training centre in 2015.
His centre, which has a website and a Facebook page, has more than 3,800 followers.
Ever since the news of Karim getting caught hit the headlines, the accused has condemned by many.
According to Karim's Facebook account, he got married to Joicy Joyce in 2014.
Why did Karim cheat
The police said that the accused had got the 112th rank in his second attempt at the UPSC exams in 2015 but did not fare well in the interview.
It was then that he decided to take the exams again in order to become an IAS officer, according to the Times of India.
Reports have also said that Karim had met with an accident, as a result of which he could not clear the police fitness tests, and hence wanted to become an IAS officer.
Karim's wife, who is from Kanjirappally of Kerala, helped him by giving him the answers orally from Hyderabad.
The accused had confessed during the interrogation that he had taken photographs of the question paper and had sent them to his wife.
