Patna, June 3: Protests continued outside the Bihar State Examination Board (BSEB) Intermediate office on Buddha Marg for the fourth consecutive day today.
Yesterday, the protesting students had received support from members of the All India Students' Federation (AISF). Today, members of the All India Democratic Students' Organisation (AIDSO) joined over 200 students who had gathered outside the BSEB gate and kept raising slogans against BSEB chairman Anand Kishor and seeking justice from the state government.
The protests began around 11am but soon the road turned into a battleground with the students pelting a passing bus with stones and coconuts. They also upturned a garbage vat on Buddha Marg.
Seeing the situation spinning out of control, Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel were summoned. The men in uniform charged the fleeing students with batons. Many of them fell on the road and suffered minor bruises, while a few students pelted the jawans with stones.
When police charged the students, Buddha Marg turned into a war zone for 15 minutes. Thereafter, the students peacefully assembled near the BSEB gates.
Holding marksheet in hand, Adarsh Kumar of Vaishali district said: "I have cleared the JEE mains this year. Despite that I have failed in the Intermediate exam. Last year, I had written the exam from Vishun Roy College but the results were cancelled. This year, I wrote the exam from LN College. I have got a rank of 33,000 in the all India OBC category. For the past four days, I have been running to the BSEB office but nothing has happened."
Harsh Jeet of Patna, another student standing outside the BSEB office, said: "I have cleared the Jharkhand Engineering Combined Entrance Exam but scored zero marks in physics and mathematics and seven marks in chemistry in the Intermediate exam. My exam went really well and I cannot believe that I can fail."
Several students kept standing and protesting outside the BSEB office and tried to get inside. However, the main gate remained closed and no one was let in.
Shivam Pandey, a student who has cleared the merchant navy IMU exam, expressed his disappointment with the results. "Can you believe that a student who has cleared the merchant navy exam can in the Intermediate exam," Pandey asked. "I have secured an all-India rank of 9,707, but failed in two subjects in the Intermediate exam."
While the aggrieved students stood outside the BSEB office, the AIDSO activists, led by its Patna district president Saroj Kumar Suman, kept raising slogans against the state government with placards in their hands.
"We demand that the answer-sheets be re-evaluated in front of students and photocopies of re-checked answer-sheets be given to the students. The government should explain how the Intermediate results are so poor. For the past three years, we are witnessing scams in Bihar. Don't you think the government should take moral responsibility? The education system has become a mockery in Bihar. The system has totally collapsed. We have also come to know that copies have been checked by primary teachers," said Sadhna Mishra, the former president of AIDSO. She added that the agitations will continue unless the students' papers are re-evaluated.
On the other hand, BSEB today issued an advertisement on its official website regarding scrutiny of papers.
According to the notice, the students can apply for scrutiny (in which re-totalling is done to check whether marks have been granted for all answers) between June 3 and 12 by paying Rs 120 per subject. Students can submit their applications online and offline.
