Second attempt: ‘If at first you don’t succeed try again’

Fifty students arrested for re-attempting the exam papers they solved in the morning.

RAWALPINDI:

Over three dozen students of a private polytechnic institute were arrested on Monday for re-attempting the examination papers they had solved in the morning.

The Waris Khan police raided the Government Elementary Shimla School for Boys, Aria Mohalla, and arrested 50 students of Rawalpindi Poly Technical Institute along with a deputy superintendent of examination Raja Abid Yaqoob and two invigilators. The students had already solved their question paper of Computer and Information Technology (CIT) of Diploma in Associate Engineering (DAE) at their designated examination centre, Government Hashmat Ali Higher Secondary School for Boys.

“I was convinced by my friend about the offer of solving the paper again for Rs1,000 at Aria Muhalla, as I could not solve three of my questions in the paper in my first attempt,” said Ghulam Ghaus, one of the arrested students.

Repenting on his decision to attempt the paper again, Usman Rasheed, another student, said he just wanted to improve his paper that he had solved on Monday morning.

The Waris Khan Police Station House Officer Raja Rashid said, on a tip-off, he raided the school in Aria Mohalla and arrested Raja Abid along with two invigilators as the students were busy attempting the paper again.

According to the roll number slips of the candidates they had appeared for CIT paper at Hashmat Ali Scholl from 9am to 12pm, the SHO said adding they had recovered Rs29,000 in total from Raja Abid and Abdur Rehman Lodhi, headmaster of the Shimla School and the resident inspector of the examination centre at his own school for the examination being conducted by Punjab Board of Technical Education (PTEB), Lahore.

The superintendent of the examination centre at the Hashmat Ali School was also arrested, as he was responsible for dispatching the solved answer sheets to the office of controller examination, Lahore. Instead, he handed them over to his deputy Raja Abid, who took the papers to Shimla School where the students started solving them again.

Police booked the examination staff for theft, dishonesty and criminal breach of trust and the students for committing cheating and fraud.

“The superintendents for examination centres and their resident inspectors are arranged by the examination body and other staff for the conduct of examination is arranged by the two officers,” said Tariq Mehmood Malik, Controller Examination of Technical Education Board.

He said departmental action would be initiated against the examination staff as they were hired from the general education cadre under the relevant rules.

Tariq Malik told The Express Tribune that the arrested Superintendent Khwaja Naveed was a teacher at Government Poly Technical College Taxila and Raja Abid was a primary level teacher at a government school at Khyaban-i-Sir Syed.

Recently in another case, a government school headmaster was arrested by Rawat Police for allegedly stealing the answer sheets for different subjects of secondary school certificate (SSC) examination from a private bank to solve them again.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 28^th, 2011.