Eight suspended after Odisha Matric exam paper goes viral

Cuttack: The Odisha Board of Secondary Education (BSE) today suspended as many as eight employees of the State Government after question paper of the annual Matric exam reportedly got leaked on social media.

Those placed under suspension are four examination centre superintendents and four invigilators of Karamangala and Gopinathpur high schools under Boden block of Nuapada district, Sudarshan Vidya Bhawan in Dhenkanal district and Bandhugaon High School in Koraput district, informed BSE president Jahan Ara Begum.

She further said that FIRs will be lodged in this connection.

Notably, MIL (Odia) question paper surfaced on WhatsApp and went viral an hour after the commencement of the exam today.

School and Mass Education Minister Badri Narayan Patra rubbished the reports stating that mobile phones were completely prohibited at the exam centres.

“As per the system, question papers are transported to nodal centres and kept there in police custody. It was dispatched to exam centres under tight police security. There is no way the paper could leak as the packets were opened in the presence of officials,” Patra said.

BSE president Jahan Ara Begum also refuted the report saying the question papers went viral after examination. “As the first part of the exam had already ended and the question papers went viral on social media after exam, we could not term it as ‘leak’,” she said.