India arrests '1,000 police cheats'

More than 1,000 men have reportedly been arrested in India's Bihar state for impersonating candidates in physical fitness tests for the police.

The men had been hired to pass themselves off as the candidates, according to the state police.

The arrests were made over the last fortnight, as documents produced by the men were found to have been falsified.

Photographs of mass cheating in Bihar's secondary school exams provoked an outcry earlier this month.

More than 300 people, many of them parents, were arrested after the publication of the pictures.

Last year, some 150 people were arrested in Bihar for cheating in a written exam for police constables, Indian media say.

However, a Bihar police official told the Times of India newspaper that the latest round of arrests is the largest ever made for impersonation.

Some 52,000 people were selected for the physical fitness test, according to Indian media, with the state government hoping to recruit around 12,000 police constables from their ranks.