More than 10 people have been arrested on suspicion of their involvement in leaking questions of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) examination. The IELTS is a popular English proficiency test. Police, however, have not revealed the details of the arrestees. 

“Based on a tip-off question leak and huge monetary transaction, we have arrested a few people. We are investigating to get to the national and international racket behind these leaks,” said Superintendent of Police Ram Dutta Joshi, spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Range, Teku. Police confiscated several sets of questions during a raid on a few hotels on Friday. It was not immediately clear if any of those questions matched with the original questions. 

With a constant stream of Nepali students opting for higher studies overseas, the IELTS has been high on demand as the test is a pre-requisite for admission in popular academic institutions in the UK, Australia and the United States. The British Council is the sole body responsible for the IELTS in Nepal. A council official declined the Post’s request for comment over the question paper leak, saying that they learnt about the news from external sources and the examination on Saturday was held normally.