Examinees demand 'cheating rights' .... Jalpaiguri scrap after crackdown on chits in class X test

Civic volunteers and police officers with the headmaster of Fanindra Deb Institution in Jalpaiguri on Saturday. Telegraph picture 

TT, Jalpaiguri: Some students appearing for the Class X examination of an open school board here on Saturday scuffled with civic volunteers after being prevented from cheating, police said.

Complaints of cheating by many of the 120-odd examinees in their history paper had poured in on Friday from Fanindra Deb Institution, the test centre for the West Bengal Council of Rabindra Open Schooling. Open school is for candidates not enrolled as regular students in schools.

The complaints had led to the deployment of police and civic volunteers during Saturday's Bengali paper. "It is disappointing that most examinees resorted to cheating and a number of persons, known to the examinees, were caught red-handed from outside the campus supplying chits," said Dhiren Jhampati, the headmaster of Fanindra Institution, one of the prominent schools in Jalpaiguri town.

Stopped on Saturday, the examinees resorted to protests. "It was surprising that the examinees demanded that they be allowed to copy from chits. They also wanted the civic volunteers removed from the exam halls," said a police officer.

The cops would have none of it, and detained six examinees with chits. Among them, sources said, four were not allowed to sit in the exams by the school authorities. With the problem festering, the cops and the volunteers have been requested to help oversee the exams till they end on July 7.

"We have decided that our men will be posted at the school till the exam ends," said Biswasroy Sarkar, inspector-in-charge of the Kotwali police station in Jalpaiguri.