Police in northern India have broken up a gang that promised professional test-takers and high-tech listening devices to help applicants pass a two-day test to become police constables, officials said Tuesday.
FILE- In this April 26, 2016 file photo, candidates, many barefoot and unable to afford running shoes, run to pass a fitness test during a recruitment drive for the Uttar Pradesh state police, in Allahabad, India. Police in northern India have broken up a gang that promised professional test-takers and high-tech listening devices to help applicants pass a two-day test to become police constables, officials said Tuesday. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh, File)
The Uttar Pradesh state Special Task Force made 23 arrests Monday and Tuesday, said police official Amitabh Yash, and police were carrying out additional raids in search of more people. The suspects were arrested in major cities across the state.
Those arrested included so-called "solvers" — people paid to take a test for someone else — and agents who represent them. Police also seized small listening devices, designed to be worn inside the ear, so that answers could be dictated to test-takers.
In some cases, police said cheaters would take photos of the tests and message them to people waiting outside. Those people then relay answers back to the test-takers.
Testing to become constables, low-level Indian police officers, began Tuesday. The job is highly sought-after among working-class and poor Indians, with more than 2.3 million people applying this year for 42,000 openings in Uttar Pradesh.
Cheating is rampant in Indian exams, in schools and for government jobs, though authorities have tightened security in recent years to try to lessen the problem. Closed-circuit TV cameras have become common in testing centers, and test-takers are often forbidden from wearing heavy clothing that could hide cellphones or crib sheets.
More than 1 million students skipped a pair of key high school exams this year in Uttar Pradesh after authorities announced the state government had created a special task force and an intelligence unit to monitor the tests.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Gangs in Haiti laid siege to several neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince, burning homes and exchanging gunfire with police for hours as hundreds fled the violence early Thursday in one of the biggest attacks since Haiti’s new prime minister was announced.
The attacks began late Wednesday in neighborhoods including Solino and Delmas 18, 20 and 24 located southwest of the main international airport, which has remained closed for nearly two months amid relentless gang violence.
“The gangs started burning everything in sight,” said a man called Néne, who declined to give his last name out of fear. “I was hiding in a corner all night.”
He walked with a friend as they carried a dusty red suitcase between them that was stuffed with clothes — the only thing they could save. The clothes belonged to Néne’s children, whom he had rushed out of Delmas 18 around dawn during a pause in the fighting.
The neighborhoods that once bustled with traffic and pedestrians were like ghost towns shortly after sunrise, with a heavy silence blanketing the area except for the occasional bleating from a lone goat.
An armored police truck patrolled the streets, rolling past charred vehicles and cinderblock walls where someone had scrawled “Viv Babecue,” a reference in Haitian Creole to one of Haiti’s most powerful gang leaders.
People whose homes were spared in the attack in Delmas 18 and other nearby communities clutched fans, stoves, mattresses and plastic bags filled with clothes as they fled by foot, motorcycle or on colorful small buses known as tap-taps. Others were walking empty-handed, having lost everything.
“There were gunshots left and right,” said Paul Pierre, 47, who was walking with his partner in search of shelter after their house was burned down. They couldn’t save any of their belongings.
He said the overnight fighting separated children from their parents and husbands from their wives as people fled in terror: “Everyone is just trying to save themselves."
Martineda, a woman who declined to give her last name out of fear, said she was left homeless after armed gunmen torched her home. She fled with her 4-year-old, whom she said tried to run away when the gunfire erupted late Wednesday.
“I told him, ‘Don’t be scared. This is life in Haiti,’” she said as she balanced a heavy load of goods on her head including butter that she hoped to sell to make some money and find a new home.
When asked to recount what happened overnight, she said: “Gunfire, gunfire, gunfire everywhere! No one slept. Everyone was running.”
The attack occurred in an area controlled by Jimmy Chérizier, a former elite police officer known as Barbecue who is leader of a powerful gang federation known as G9 Family and Allies.
He and other gang leaders have been blamed for coordinated attacks that began on Feb. 29 across the capital, Port-au-Prince. Gunmen have burned police stations, opened fire on the main international airport and stormed Haiti’s two biggest prisons, releasing more than 4,000 inmates.
The attacks eventually forced Prime Minister Ariel Henry to resign and led to the creation of a transitional presidential council whose majority unexpectedly announced a new prime minister on Tuesday: Fritz Bélizaire, a former sports minister. The move is threatening to fracture the nine-member council, which was sworn in last week.
As new leaders take charge of the country amid squabbling, Haitians are demanding that they prioritize their safety as gangs remain more powerful and better armed than Haiti’s National Police.
More than 2,500 people have been killed or injured from January to March of this year, a more than 50% increase compared with the same period last year, according to the U.N.
Meanwhile, more than 90,000 people have fled Port-au-Prince in just one month as gangs that control an estimated 80% of the capital have increasingly been targeting previously peaceful neighborhoods.
Ernest Aubrey recalled how he moved to Delmas 18 a decade ago. Now, he’s leaving home for the first time.
“It’s too much. We can’t resist anymore,” he said of the gangs. “They are taking everything we own.”
As he walked with a heavy bag, he spotted an acquaintance leaving in a car and ran toward them to see if he could get a ride.
One of the few people who opted to stay in Delmas 18 was Vanessa Vieux. While she sent her elderly mother to the countryside early Wednesday after the attack, she decided it was best if she didn’t relinquish her home to gangs. Plus, she has faith in Haiti’s National Police.
“I live next to a police officer,” she said. “That’s why I’m not scared.”
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
Residents walk down a hill as they flee their homes in the Delmas 22 neighborhood to escape gang violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)
Residents flee their homes in the Delmas 22 neighborhood to escape gang violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)
Residents use a public transport vehicle known as a tap-tap as they evacuate from the Delmas 22 neighborhood, with luggage and photos, to escape gang violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
A fruit vendor walks by a burned car in the Delmas district of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Residents use a "tap-tap" public transport vehicle to carry some of their house items as they evacuate the Delmas 22 neighborhood to escape gang violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Residents walk past a burnt car blocking the street as they evacuate the Delmas 22 neighborhood to escape gang violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Residents walk past road blocks as they evacuate the Delmas 22 neighborhood to escape gang violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Residents walk past a burnt car blocking the street as they evacuate the Delmas 22 neighborhood the morning after an attack amid gang violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
