By book or by crook: India Today investigation exposes exam cheats of UP

A week long investigation by India Today across Uttar Pradesh has exposed the state's underground gateways to higher education and employment.

At a number of test centres in UP, India Today's investigative teams filmed associates scaling walls to ping paper balls inside examination rooms, with police looking the other way.

From Mathura, Deoria, Ballia, Mainpuri to Meerut, students as young as 10th graders were seen using unfair means to achieve good marks in their current pressure-packed board exams, helped as they were by their relatives and a well-oiled cheating mafia, the investigation found.