No question leak in HSC exams so far
Staff Reporter
Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has arrested two persons for their alleged involvement in the recent question paper leaks, even as three papers of Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) and equivalent exams went off without any incident. RAB-14 yesterday arrested Humayun Ali, 19, from Bhatara in Sarishabari area of Jamalpur district and seized three mobile sets and five SIM cards from his possession.
During preliminary interrogation, Humayun admitted to his involvement with a group involved in leaking question papers. According to his confession, he leaked question papers of Junior School Certificate and Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations. A case was filed against him under the ICT Act at Sarishabari police station.
Earlier, RAB-2 had arrested Mahfuzur Rahman from his house at Kalyanpur in Dhaka around 5.05 am on Tuesday following a tip off, a press release said.
RAB said Mahfuzur was a seventh semester student of civil department of Dhaka Polytechnic Institute. After primary interrogation, RAB found that he was involved in selling question papers to examinees through Facebook messenger application and several WhatsApp accounts such as Real Admin BD, Tiger Team BD, and Lion or Tiger group. He collected money through a BKash account before selling the question papers online. RAB said it was conducting drives to arrest Mahfuzurs cohorts.
RAB director general has said his force will work diligently to root out the culprits involved in question paper leaks. The force has kept a vigil on social media platforms, examination centres and coaching centres to curb the problem.
In a related development, there were no reports of question paper leak for the third day of the HSC examinations. The English 1st Paper was held yesterday and the English 2nd Paper will be held on Saturday.
However, different groups were still spreading fake question papers on social media under different admin names, leading to confusion among examinees.
To counter the menace, the education ministry has repeatedly appealed to examinees not to pay attention to such questions, but to concentrate on their studies.
The Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Dhaka, has said it was closely monitoring the matter, but no question paper leaks were found in the HSC exams so far. Ministry sources said they have taken various steps to curb question paper leak after learning lessons from the SSC examinations when several questions were leaked online.
The steps include the selection of the question set centrally just 25 minutes before an examination.
The ministry has also warned of stern action against anyone found carrying electronic devices in the examination halls and in their vicinity. Even the officer on duty at the centre is not allowed to carry any smartphone. The officer is allowed to carry only a phone without any camera facility. On Tuesday, the Dhaka Board had served a show cause notice against the officer who was on duty at the Central Women College centre for using a smartphone during the examination. The officer was given three days to file his reply to the notice.
A day earlier, on Monday, the board had issued similar show cause notices to the officers on duty of six centres for carrying smartphones and ferrying question papers from the Dhaka treasury to the centres on the vehicles which had black window glasses. These persons were asked to reply to the notices within seven days. The board said it would take strict action against any sort of negligence for carrying out a fair examination.
