A total of 24 people have been arrested for their alleged role in the leak of the Class XII English question paper of the Uttar Pradesh School Examination Board. This includes the seven people arrested on Thursday, March 31, including two local journalists, said the police. 

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has invoked the National Security Act, which gives the police the right to detain suspects for questioning for months, without an explanation. The exam, that was scheduled for Wednesday, March 30, had to be cancelled. It will not be conducted on April 13. He has also handed over the investigation of the case to a Special Task Force.

Those arrested include Ballia's District Inspector of Schools (DIoS) Brajesh Kumar Mishra and a total of three journalists with the one arrested earlier, police officials said, as per a report by news agency PTI. 

The DIoS and one of the arrested journalists, Ajit Ojha, were sent to jail under judicial custody on Wednesday after they were produced before the chief judicial magistrate. "The remaining 22 arrested accused in the exam paper leak case were produced before the judicial magistrate here and were remanded in 14-day judicial custody," said Ballia Additional Superintendent of Police Vijay Tripathi.

Uttar Pradesh Education Minister Gulab Devi, meanwhile, visited the Ideal Public Inter College, a UP Board exam centre in Lucknow on Thursday to oversee arrangements for the ongoing school examinations.

She asked the centre in-charge about procedures being followed to prevent the use of unfair means and also paid a visit to the classrooms where students were taking the Board exams.

On Wednesday, Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar had said that the Ballia DM and SP received information on Wednesday morning that the second shift paper had been leaked.