The board is yet to decide a new date for the paper. Officials of the board said the examination could be conducted within a month. Over 76,450 students were to appear in the examinations, which were scheduled to take place at 193 different centres in West Bengal and Tripura.

Earlier, the police arrested two persons in Ghatal, West Midnapore, and recovered photocopies of the leaked question papers.

Those arrested have been identified as Arun Chowdhury, a lawyer by profession, and Mihir Dandapat, an assistant of Chowdhury.

“We were tipped off about JEE question papers being sold. The trap was laid on Friday, and the person agreed to give the question papers of all sets of Biology, Physics and Chemistry for Rs 2.5 lakh,” said ADG CID Bhupinder Singh.

The police are now trying to ascertain whether they have any link with the board officials or coaching centres. Initially, the police detained both of them and sent the question papers to the board for verification.

“After the board verified the papers and confirmed that the papers were identical, we arrested them. We are still trying to identify the source of the leak,” Singh said.

“The Mathematics paper has not been verified but all other papers are identical to those which have been recovered from the market,” said Asim Kumar Bose, member secretary, Joint Entrance Examination Board (JEEB).

“The papers recovered from the market are a rough copy of the question papers,” he added.

According to the officials of the Joint Entrance Board, the arrested person has revealed his ‘contacts’ in the government printing press, which have been involved in the printing of these papers for the last 30 years.

Next week, the JEE Board will be meeting to decide on the schedule of the examinations.