J’khand students write boardexam from their homes
Man arrested while carrying answer sheets from homes of two students for submission at an examination centre
RANCHI Jharkhand police have busted an exam racket with the arrest of a middleman who was carrying answer sheets from homes of two intermediate examinees for submission at the examination centre on Tuesday.
Police have also registered a case against the examination centre, Balidih High School’s superintendent for facilitating the fraud. “A DSP level officer is investigating the matter. Details will be revealed soon,” Bokaro SP YS Ramesh told HT.
The Jharkhand Academic Council (JAC) board exams for matriculation (Class 10) and intermediate (Class 12) began on February 18. The exams end on March 7. Nearly eight lakh students are appearing for the exams across 1,385 centres in the state.
Police are interrogating the accused Pradyuman Pandey and are hopeful of unveiling a bigger racket, perhaps even involving education and administrative officials.
Education department officials said the answer papers have been confiscated and the two students identified as Aman Kumar and Sushmita Kumari, who apparently got the question papers well in advance and wrote the exam at home, have been marked absent.
District education officer Mahip Kumar Singh said locals had nabbed Pandey near a petrol pump while he was on his way to the examination centre to submit the answer sheets.
Some local youths had suspected Pandey for being involved in unfair practices. They caught him when he was taking out answer sheets from the inside of his T-shirt near a petrol pump in Balidih.
“They (local youths) seized the answer sheets from him and handed him to the authorities at the examination centre. Soon Pandey was handed over to police,” he said. The district education authority quickly swung into action and removed the magistrate, centre superintendent and invigilator at the centre and an FIR has been lodged against Pandey and centre superintendent. “We have set up a probe committee in this regard to find out how the answer sheet went outside the centre,” vice chairman of the Jharkhand Academic , Phool Singh told Hindustan Times.