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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

TET postponed after paper leak, three held

Mumbai: In another shocker, the Maharashtra Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) question paper has ‘leaked’ - barely 24 hours before the scheduled examination on Sunday - jeopardising the future of thousands aspiring to join the noble profession of teaching, officials said here. Reacting quickly, the Maharashtra State Council of Examination cancelled Sunday’s paper scheduled to be held simultaneously at 1,028 centres across the state and said that the new date will be announced early next week. As...

TET postponed after paper leak, three held

Mumbai: In another shocker, the Maharashtra Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) question paper has ‘leaked’ - barely 24 hours before the scheduled examination on Sunday - jeopardising the future of thousands aspiring to join the noble profession of teaching, officials said here. Reacting quickly, the Maharashtra State Council of Examination cancelled Sunday’s paper scheduled to be held simultaneously at 1,028 centres across the state and said that the new date will be announced early next week. As many as six lakh candidates were scheduled to appear for the examination across 1,728 centres at 37 locations, officials said. The paper leak was detected and verified swiftly by Bhiwandi Police in Thane district which has arrested three alleged suspected, two from Bihar and one from Haryana, who were planning to hawk it for a staggering sum of Rs. 1.50 crore, suggesting the involvement of an inter-state gang behind the incident. Giving details, the Bhiwandi Additional Commissioner of Police Ashok Dudhe said that the question paper was allegedly being ‘sold’ for a staggering Rs 1.50 crore, indicating a well-organised racket transcending the state border. He said that early on Saturday, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP-II) Dr. Pawan Bansod received a confidential tip-off and he immediately alerted senior officials who launched a discreet operation to track and apprehend the culprits. “An informant tipped us that the accused were travelling from New Delhi to Mumbai carrying copies of the TET question papers. After verification, we laid a trap and arrested the three suspects in Bhiwandi. However, the kingpin/s behind the racket remain absconding,” Dudhe said. Police said that the papers were to be sold for Rs 1.50 crore for which advance was reportedly collected from some persons. The arrested accused are: Rajiv Shah, 45 and Akash Kumar, 30, both of Patna in Bihar and Dheeraj Kumar, 28, of Panipat in Haryana. Four Sets Official sources said that the police sleuths accosted the suspected trio in a local hotel room where they were staying, questioned and searched them. They recovered four sets of purported copies of the crucial TET paper from them. Upon sustained questioning they admitted that these were the copies of the TET examination question paper of June 28. Experts from the MSCE were immediately summoned to confirm the documents recovered and the officials confirmed that many of the questions apparently were similar to those in the official TET exam paper of Sunday. Armed with the information, the Kongaon Police Station in Bhiwandi initially detained the trio, filed a case and then placed them under arrest. They are slapped with charges under the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita Sections 318(4), 316(5) and 61(2), besides stringent sections of the Maharashtra Examination Act, 2024, said Senior Police Inspector (HQ) Shailesh Salvi. As news of the paper leak spread like wildfire, thousands of candidates vent their ire before the mediapersons and on social media, demanding an overhaul of the public examinations monitoring systems and stringent punishment to the accused. SIT Formed The Thane Police have formed a 9-member SIT comprising Dr. Bansod, Sachin Sangle, Dr. Vinay Marathe and other officers, to investigate the source of the leak, identify the masterminds, and determine whether the network was linked with similar examination scams across the country. The TET paper leak comes days after the nationwide furore over the NEET 2026 exam paper leak with questions raised on the country’s public examinations system amid claims and assurances of tight security and monitoring. Congress, CJP flay govt Maharashtra Congress President Harshwardhan Sapkal and Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke pounced on the state government, accusing it of failing to safeguard the future of thousands of deserving candidates. They demanded a thorough probe and stringent action against everyone involved, lamenting how a series of examination scandals have damaged the credibility of the state’s education and public exams systems. “The government is not bothered. They are busy with breaking political parties. The so-called double-engine regime is to be blamed for the ‘double-leaks’ in such a short time. The education minister must resign,” demanded Dipke. The examination system has come under a cloud with several entrance and recruitment exams, including the NEET, UGC-NET, the Maharashtra TET and others cancelled or being probed in the past three years, triggering huge public outrage and raising question marks on the careers of lakhs of candidates.

A Wake-up Call for Security in Our Public Institution!

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

A Wake-up Call for Security in Our Public Institution!

Recent incidents of sexual assault on children at a school in Badlapur near Mumbai and the rape and murder of a resident doctor at R.G. Kar public hospital in Kolkata have shocked the country. In both cases, the perpetrators had unhindered access to the public institutes and executed their heinous activities undetected.

In Badlapur, the young children only disclosed the assault after fifteen days. In R.G. Kar Hospital, the culprit murdered the victim after the assault, preventing her from reporting the crime.

The investigation of the Badlapur incident is being conducted by the Special Investigation Team (SIT), while the R.G.Kar case is being investigated by the CBI. In both incidents, the culprits chose isolated areas without CCTV coverage, avoiding detection and lacking witnesses despite being in public institutions.

In the school incident, the child’s genital pain complaint went unexamined by private doctors, missing potential evidence for legal action. The headmistress hid the information from the school authorities for three days. The school authorities also failed to report it to the police immediately, as required under the POCSO Act. The complaint was only registered after a delay of twelve hours following police involvement and a subsequent medical examination.

The suspect, a casual contract sweeper, was hired without verification two weeks prior and was allowed unrestricted access without an identity card.

The Bombay High Court ordered the police to charge the school authorities for failing to report the incident and stressed the need for better police sensitivity to child offenses. In offences against women and children, police may serve as the first responders, investigators, or officers responsible for registering F.I.R. It is their primary duty to inform victims about their legal rights. This approach is crucial for preventing, detecting, and investigating such crimes.

Many women are unaware of grievance procedures and reluctant to file a complaint due to the shame and stigma associated with such crimes. Although training provides knowledge and skills for investigation, it must also expand its focus to include attitudinal transformation as a key component. When a complainant approaches the police, officers’ behavior affects their cooperation. Training should focus on changing these attitudes.

To ensure fairness, police must follow these precautions:

• Who first receives the complaint at the police station?

• How long does it take to record the complaint?

• Is the complaint documented as stated by the complainant, or is it downplayed?

• Is the complaint recorded in the complainant’s own words and language?

• Is an audio-visual recording made of the complainant?

• Was there any demand for illegal gratification?

For every complaint involving a woman or a girl child, the DCP should verify these details and maintain a record. Additionally, awareness should be raised about the e-FIR facility under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) 2023, which enables filing complaints online.

Educational authorities must assess the security requirements during their visits to schools. They need to emphasise immediate reporting of every incident against a child to the police, even if it may be embarrassing to the institution. Similarly, the policy of using contractual labour for housekeeping services must be reviewed. While it may save costs for the institute, the effect of such contractual workers’ behaviour is more damaging to the institute.

My experience reviewing the security requirements of medical colleges and hospitals in Maharashtra provides valuable insights. My recommendations included having personnel from the Maharashtra Security Force (MSF) deployed for surveillance, monitoring, and rapid response. They were equipped with CCTV facilities and weapons. This system has been effective for the past seven years and should be considered for implementation in other states across India.

(The writer is a former DGP, Maharashtra. Views personal.)

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