Three of the 16 pages of the question paper were uploaded on WhatsApp one and a half hours after the three-hour-long exam started at 12 noon on February 24 and circulated thereafter.
The persons who had uploaded the image of a few pages of the English question paper of class 10 West Bengal board exams in Malda district were identified and the details of the findings were shared with the appropriate authorities for follow-up action.
Announcing this, West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBSE) President Ramanuj Ganguly on Saturday said altogether nine mobile phones, including seven in Malda district, were seized during the board examinations that started on February 23 and concluded on Saturday.
However, he did not clarify from whom the mobiles were seized and whether any of the devices were used in uploading the images. Three of the 16 pages of the question paper were uploaded on WhatsApp one and a half hours after the three-hour-long exam started at 12 noon on February 24 and circulated thereafter.
"The origin of the childish mischief was traced in an exam centre at Malda. We have zeroed in on the source of three pages circulated on social media. However, we cannot go beyond that as we are not an investigating agency,” Ganguly told a press conference.
The inputs were shared with the Malda district administration for the cyber crime department to go deeper into the case, he said. "We fail to fathom what such acts would yield in the long run. It was an act of imprudence which would achieve no results. But due to stricter curbs with electronic surveillance, any such malpractice can be detected soon and this should serve as a wake-up call to any conspirator," the WBBSE chief said.
Barring this one act of “sabotage”, the exams were held smoothly, he said. About non-distribution of graph sheets to examinees along with the Mathematics question paper, he said the Board will see to it that the interest of the students is not affected.
To a question, he said none of the teachers who lost their jobs at the order of the Calcutta High Court in connection with the SSC recruitment scam had the required experience in evaluating answer papers of examinations conducted by the WBBSE.
Ganguly said Board has set the time frame to publish the exam results by May this year. Altogether 6,98,627 candidates appeared for the class 10 state board exam.