Bhubaneswar, March 8: Chemistry exam of the ongoing Plus Two boards scheduled for tomorrow has been postponed to March 30 following reports that the confidentiality of the question paper was compromised.

This came barely 24 hours after the Council of Higher Secondary Education cancelled the physics paper yesterday upon detecting question leak, shifting the test to March 25. A crime branch team, led by deputy superintendent of police S.K. Patnaik, has begun an investigation at the council office.

However, a senior council official said the chemistry exam had been rescheduled merely to beef up security at the test centres. “There is no conclusive evidence to prove that the questions have been leaked. We have just postponed it to strengthen security measures,” said council secretary Tusarkanta Tripathy.

Higher education minister Badri Narayan Patra has also instructed the director of higher education to conduct an internal inquiry into the matter. Plus Two exams began on March 1 and are scheduled to end by March 31. Around 2.9 lakh candidates in 1,295 colleges are taking the tests in arts, science, commerce and vocational education streams at 1,069 centres across the state. Sources said rumours of a mathematics paper leak had also been doing the rounds and they suspected the council employees could well be involved in the misdeed.

“Thousands of students are suffering because of the vested interests of a few disgruntled persons, who wished to be part of the exam duty but were not included,” said an official, adding that the leak had not been traced to any exam centre so far.

The incident has embarrassed the council and the state government which had made elaborate arrangements for the security of exam materials. While the question papers were stored in iron chests with a double-lock system, the respective district administrations and the police, for the first time, had been directly involved in conducting the exam.

Council chairman Gauri Shankar Ray dismissed speculations of any further leaks. “There is no report of similar incidents. The crime branch is conducting an independent probe. Also, I am sure that the council employees are involved in this crime,” he said.

Science stream students are dejected following rescheduling of the two important papers. “Had things gone as planned, our exams would have ended by March 18 and we would have had good amount of time to study for the all-India entrance tests,” said an examinee.