The state of Bihar has been notorious for mass cheating after the prominent toppers’ scam. However, a school in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district took things to the extreme, when female candidates appearing for a competitive examination had their sleeves cut off by invigilators in “full public view” in a bid to prevent cheating.
The incident occurred on Saturday, when candidates appearing for the nursing entrance exam of Bihar Combined Entrance Competitive Examination Board (BCECEB) were asked to remove their full-sleeved shirts or have their sleeves snipped outside the exam hall. Reportedly, the candidates had been advised against full-sleeved clothing as a precautionary measure beforehand, District Education Officer Lalan Prasad Singh said.
However, when some of the examinees failed to comply with the directive, the boys were asked to remove their shirts, while the girls’ sleeves were resized with scissors and blades.
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“I was taken aback when the personnel manning the examination centre asked me to take off my shirt and sit for the examination only in vests and trousers. I was subjected to mental agony for no fault of mine,” Sunil Kumar, a candidate, told The Telegraph.
A video of the incident appeared on regional news channels, sparking an uproar. “The footage showed that the staff members of the examination centre at a public school were cutting off the sleeves of candidates with scissors and blades. The education department conducted an inquiry into the incident and barred the school from holding competitive exams in future,” Singh said.
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“The intention of the exercise was not questionable and care was taken to involve only female staff, but the problem was that the candidates were made to resize the sleeves in full public view,” he said. The school has now been blacklisted from holding exams and the official at the centre has been debarred for life, Singh said.
However, this is not a first for Muzaffarpur district. In 2016, over 1,150 candidates appearing for an Army exam were asked to strip to their underwear to “save time on frisking so many people”.
(With PTI Inputs)
