Man flees with 516 SSC answer papers

As many as 516 answersheets of Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exams were allegedly stolen from a Dahisar school last week. The school authorities told the police the papers were stolen by a man who posed as a scrap dealer.

“The school principal approached us on April 8 and we have registered a case under section 380 (theft) of the Indian Penel Code against an unidentified person,” said Kiran Kumar Chavan, deputy commissioner of police (zone XII).

“There are no CCTV cameras in the area where the answer sheets were kept, so we will inquire with the staff of the school about the accused,” Chavan said.

The answer-sheets were given to Isra Vidyalaya at Dahisar (East) by the Maharashtra state board for evaluation, after the

SSC exams finished on April 1. The answer-sheets were largely unchecked and were stored in the principal’s cabin.

“The incident took place on April 3 around 1pm, when most of the teachers were out for lunch,” said school principal Narendra Pathak, who registered the complaint with the Dahisar police station.

“The man came to my cabin to

collect old papers. I stepped away for 10-15 minutes and he fled with the answer papers.”

Pathak said he was worried if the incident will affect the SSC results, which are usually announced in June.

He immediately informed the Mumbai divisional board about the incident. “With so many papers going missing, it might affect the exam results. I am very stressed by the whole affair,” said Pathak.

Mumbai divisional board authorities said they would wait for the police investigation to be completed before taking any action. “We request students not to worry, we are positive that the police will find the papers,” said Siddeshwar Chandekar, divisional secretary of the Mumbai division.