Aspirants welcome arrests, seek more information on paper leak

OUR CORRESPONDENT

Itagar, March 23: After it was reported that police have arrested five persons in connection to the leak of an Aruchal Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) question paper, aspirants are voicing mixed responses.

On September 14 last year, after the mains examition for general studies was held, some candidates claimed the paper was an exact replica of the 2011 examition’s reserved paper.

A large number of aspirants soon formed a consultative committee and staged a series of protests including a 72-hour hunger strike by aspirant Ujum Perying and other supporters. Their agitation resulted in the forming of a magisterial inquiry critical of officials of the commission and later a special investigation team was also formed.

In December the joint secretary, deputy secretary, private secretary and PA to joint secretary were suspended by the commission. It was also decided that examitions would be conducted in the month of May. Amongst the arrested are APPSC under secretary Joram gu, joint secretary Nima Tondrang, deputy secretary Bate Koyu, private secretary to chairman Debhasish Dey and persol assistant to joint secretary Swaroop Bhattacharjee. They were arrested between March 18 and 20.

Among the arrested persons, Battacharjee has been remanded to 7 days police custody while the others arrested are under 4 days police remand.

Though the arrests have been welcomed by the aspirants, a few are awaiting for more information to be disclosed.

As per reports, the police are not willing to disclose the source of the information that led to the arrests of the five individuals. Israel Perme of the aspirants’ consultative committee questioned why the me of the aspirant has not been disclosed.

Perme said he was “satisfied that those responsible have been arrested” but added that the aspirants who provided the information should have been med.

“The leak could not have happened spontaneously as it was reported”, he said. Perme said that the explation that the leaked paper was simply handed over when an aspirant asked for it does not carry merit. Ujum Perying, who was at the forefront of the hunger strike in January earlier, also echoed a similar view.

“There has been no new information and there is nothing concrete in the police statement”, she said, hinting at the fact that police have not yet confirmed if the leak happened for monetary reasons.

The earlier media report had said that the source who himself is an aspirant, procured the 2011 general studies Paper-II question paper from Joram gu in either the later part of September or early October in 2013. gu reportedly told Bhattacharjee to compile a set of old papers (APPSCCE- 2011 Mains GS Paper-II). gu gave the question paper to the said aspirant on the condition that he returns it after making copies.

The aspirant later shared the question paper with another aspirant. After the APPSCCE- Mains 2014 Paper-II examition on September 14 last year, the second aspirant crossed checked and confirmed that the APPSCCE-Mains 2014 was photocopy of the 2011 Mains GS Paper-II.