Chennai: A Tamil Nadu man who had accompanied his son to Kerala for the youngster's National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test died of a heart attack on Sunday while the would-be doctor wrote his exam unawares.

Krishnasamy, 46, had seen off son Kasturi Mahalingam at his exam centre in Ernakulam and returned to their lodge when he suffered the heart attack. He died in a hospital.

An official release said Krishnasamy was a resident of Vilangudi village in Tiruvarur.

A CBSE spokesperson said Tamil Nadu had witnessed a 31 per cent rise in candidates this year. So, even an increase in exam centres in the state from 149 last year to 170 failed to accommodate all its students. Therefore, 3,685 aspirants from Madurai, Tiruchirapalli, Tirunelvelli were allocated centres in Ernakulum and had to travel to the neighbouring state to sit for the exam.

Language mix-up

Nearly 100 Tamil medium NEET aspirants were given question papers in Hindi at a centre in Madurai and later given the Tamil version after a delay of about three hours.