UPTET cancelled following paper leak; to be held after a month

LUCKNOW: The UP Teachers Eligibility Test (UPTET) scheduled to be held on Sunday was cancelled after a question paper for the examination was leaked. UP basic education minister Satish Dwivedi said the examination was cancelled in both the shifts after information about the leak. "The examination would be held again within a month without charging any fee from the aspirants," he said.
ADG (law and order) Prashant Kumar said that acting on specific tip-off, units of STF in different districts of the state arrested as many 26 persons on Sunday morning. As many as 16 accused were arrested from Prayagraj alone.
The STF sources said that 11 of those arrested were solvers, one examinee, one primary teacher and three kingpins of different gangs. Ten of them ran an organised racket by promising to provide question papers to candidates in different exams.
Four persons were arrested from Lucknow district, and one each from Kaushambi, Ayodhya, and Ambedkarnagar district. Besides, three persons were arrested from Shamli district. These three had procured 10 copies of the question paper for Rs 5 lakh, and had taken Rs 50,000 from 50-60 candidates each to give them access to the papers for reading and memorising.
“The development was shared with the government and the UP Basic Education Board (UPBEB) following which a decision was taken to cancel the paper,” said Kumar.
Kumar said that as many as 19.99 lakh students were to take the TET at 2,736 centres on Sunday in two shifts.
“During probe it surfaced that the TET paper found in the possession of the accused had matched completely with the one which was to be given to the examinees in the first shift. There were multiple gangs active in six districts in the state,” said ADG, STF, Amitabh Yash.
Yash also said that the gangs were operating one two levels -- one was to take money by providing candidates the paper and the other was arranging solvers from Bihar who would sit in place of real candidates.
Yash said that Rajendra Patel was one of the kingpins of one of the gangs who arranged solvers from Bihar. His associate Sunny Singh of Bihar got arranged solvers from Bihar.
While solvers Tinku Singh, Neeraj Shukla, Sheetal Kumar, Dhananjay Kumar, Kunen Raja, Shiv Dayal were were all arrested from Naini police station area, another solver Anurag Prasad, an examinee Abhishek Singh, and Satya Prakash a primary teacher were arrested from Jhunsi area.
The STF also said that another gang which included Chaturbhuj Singh as kingpin, and solvers Ajay Kumar, Brahma Singh, and Sunil Kumar were held from Georgetown area of the district.
Those arrested from Lucknow are Anurag Desh, Fauzdar Verma, Kaushalendra Pratap and Chandu Verma. The STF said cops recovered question papers from their possession. Sources said that they contacted examinees and gave them papers before the exam at the price of Rs 15,000.
Similarly, Roshan Singh Patel, who worked as a lab technician was arrested from Kaushambi district. Question paper was also recovered from his possession. Likewise, Manish Malik, Ravi Kandla, and Dharmendra Pal were arrested from Shamli.
STF said that gang members took Rs 50,000 each from examinees. One Sandeep Verma was arrested from Ayodhya while Ramesh Gupta was nabbed in Ambedkarnagar. Question papers were found to be in possession of both.
Leaders from the opposition parties criticised the BJP government for the paper leak and accused it of abetting corruption in the state.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said such incidents have become a norm under its rule. “Cancellation of the UPTET examination due to the leak of the question paper is like playing with the future of nearly 20 lakh aspirants. Paper leaks, cancellation of the examination is common in the BJP government,” he said in a tweet.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra too alleged that corruption in education and recruitment has become common under the BJP.
BSP chief Mayawati in a tweet in Hindi criticised the BJP and also the previous SP government for such incidents and asked for a high-level probe in the matter from the current government.
The UP Basic Education Board (UPBEB) will conduct the UPTET exam again after one month. The government will bear the entire expenditure on the re-examination, said additional chief secretary Basic Education department, Deepak Kumar. The exact date of the UPTET exam will be notified in due course of time, the UP government said.