Cuttack/Bhubaneswar, May 24: A four-member crime branch team today raided the Kalinga Bharati Residential College (KBRC) in Cuttack as part of its ongoing probe into the Plus Two question paper leak incident.
Led by deputy superintendent S.K. Patnaik, the team seized documents pertaining to exam results of previous years and admission of students.
“We conducted a search at KBRC for its alleged links with the Plus Two physics question paper leak case,” said additional director general of police (crime branch) B.K. Sharma.
He said they would carry out investigations in other private colleges, including Royal Science in Balasore and other suspected institutions across the state. “We have seized financial statements, academic records and other documents for scrutiny. After going through those, we would be able to ascertain whether KBRC had any connection with the leak,” he said.
KBRC has been on the suspect list after 16 of its students secured top positions in the Plus Two exam in 2010. In the subsequent years, the numbers came down drastically with one student in 2011 and two in 2012 featuring in the top-20 merit list.
However, KBRC officials dismissed the raid as “routine investigation”. “The officials asked a lot of questions about various academic activities. We have also submitted few documents as demanded,” said KBRC principal Arun Rath.
The crime branch has already arrested six persons, all officials of various residential colleges and a council employee of Sambalpur zone, in connection with the paper leak case following which the physics and chemistry papers for nearly 77,000 candidates were rescheduled.
Exam reforms
The Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE) is exploring the possibility of sending question papers online to various centres two hours before the commencement of each exam to avoid incidents of paper leak.
The higher education department and Odisha Knowledge Corporation Limited (OKCL) have devised a project titled “Secure Remote Paper Distribution” under which question papers will not be sent out until a few hours before the exam.
The project will be implemented on an experimental basis. “Question paper leak and malpractice have been a perennial problem. So, we have decided to use technology to our advantage,” said a senior official of the higher education department.
After the council mails the question paper of a particular subject, the head of each centre will take printouts and distribute them among the examinees. The centre heads will be given an ID to log in and the password will be messaged to them a few minutes before the commencement of each exam.
“This is likely to stop question paper leak in a big way,” said OKCL managing director Santosh Birari.
