Bengaluru: The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Wednesday filed a chargesheet against 18 accused in the II PU question paper leak case; the document was submitted to the First Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACCM) court, which is also the Special KCOCA Court.

The arrested were prime accused Shivakumariah, Kumarswamy, Eermallappa, Santosh Parshuram Agsimani, Hangal Treasury office assistant Muralidhar, Manjunath N, Thimmegowda, Nagendra, Anil Kumar, Oblaraju, Anil Kumar, Ranganath, Rudrappa, Gangabyriah, Sujay Arya, Satheesha and Santosh; another accused, industrialist Narayan is absconding and a hunt has been launched.

It is said that the chargesheet was filed under various sections of KCOCA, IPC, Prevention of Corruption Act and Karnataka Education Act.

Sources say that the chargesheet had about 5,000 pages and over 300 witnesses which included students. The chargesheet also included details regarding calls and WhatsApp messages.

The chargesheet states that other than the Chemistry question papers, which was leaked twice, six other papers were also leaked using a similar modus operandi few days before the scheduled examinations.

Investigators found out that the papers were leaked from the Hangal sub-treasury in Haveri. The papers were sold with prices ranging from Rs 25,000 to Rs 1 lakh, depending on the subject.