SSLC exam: KSEE Board finds 'leaked paper' fake

24 students debarred, teachers arrested for malpractice

For the second time in four days, students appeared for the SSLC examination with doubts in their minds as rumours of the leak of science paper, scheduled for Thursday, flew thick and fast.

Queries from anxious parents and students on the paper leak had flooded the Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board (KSEEB) office on Wednesday night.

The callers informed it about the sale of handwritten copies of the “question paper” in Basavanagudi, Srinagar, Srinivasanagar, Yeshwantpur and other parts of Bangalore, and sought to know if the reports were true. The sellers allegedly made a killing.

The KSEEB, however, could not confirm the reports initially. It managed to get a copy of the “leaked” paper on Thursday morning only to find it fake. According to the KSEEB Director (Exams), D Venkateshaiah, the “leaked” paper did, in no way, tally with the original. “It was a repeat of the first day (Monday) when rumours about the leak of First Language papers had surfaced. Not a single question tallied.

The whole set of questions was compiled using previous years’ papers,” he said.

Following the sale of the ‘leaked’ papers, Venkateshaiah filed a complaint with Basavanagudi police. A similar complaint was lodged at Cottonpet police station on Monday. The KSEEB official appealed to the people to alert their jurisdictional police about the sale of such papers in future. The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and the KSEEB have formed five-stage squads through special clusters to guard exam centres.

3 teachers held

As many as 24 students were debarred for copying in the science subject examination across the State. Besides, three private school teachers who were allegedly inciting examinees to indulge in malpractice at an examination centre near Doddaballapur were arrested by the police.

Chandrashekhar, the headmaster of Manjunath High School, Konaghatta village, and two other teachers — Anand and Kiran — had come to the examination centre, Maruthi High School, in Rajaghatta near Doddaballapur despite being asked to stay away.

“We had asked them to stay away from the school premises when we received complaints that they were explaining to the students the tricks of copying on Wednesday night. Still, they arrived at the exam centre and attempted to incite students to indulge in malpractice,” H V Venkateshappa, DDPI, Bangalore Rural, said. One of the teachers, Kiran, is a II BSc student. The trio were arrested by Doddaballapur rural police on a complaint filed by the Tahsildar.