CBSE leak sparks political storm, 34 suspects quizzed
QUESTIONS ABOUND Retest could be confined to Delhi if police confirm city as epicentre of leak; new dates expected on Monday
NEW DELHI: Investigations on Thursday pointed to the national Capital emerging at the centre of an exam paper leak that forced the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to order two retests for 2.2 million Class X and Class XII nationwide and in select overseas locations, sparking outrage among students and parents and turning into a political slugfest between the Congress and the government.
Delhi Police said it had questioned at least 34 people, including an economics teacher at a private school in central Delhi and a coaching centre owner, one day after the CBSE said all 1.7 million students of Class X who took the mathematics exam on March 28 and 500,000 who sat for the economics exam on March 26, will have to take them again, admitting that the question papers had leaked in advance.
Although no arrests had been made until Thursday evening, the police said it had sought from CBSE details of all the paper-setters and places where the question papers had been stored to trace the source of the leak.
Although the paper was leaked across the country and abroad where the exams take place through the messaging platform WhatsApp, police suspect that the handwritten copies of the question papers had been put together in Delhi .
The board is likely to announce the retest dates on Monday. CBSE officials privy to the matter said that they had received calls and emails from students and parents, especially from across 200 CBSE schools abroad.