Bihar exam mess: 100 arrested, Centre to seek report

Cheating in the Class 10 exams continued in Bihar on Saturday, with police having to fire in the air and carry out a baton charge to disperse people who were helping students to copy. While nearly 100 people were arrested, union minister Upendra Kushwaha said the Centre will seek a report from Bihar on the cheating.

No one was injured in police firing in Vaishali and Bhojpur districts, an official said.

The development came just days after a photograph showing people climbing a school wall to fling answer sheets to students taking tests inside went viral and grabbed national and international headlines.

Police on Saturday fired in the air at an examination centre in Vaishali's Hajipur area to disperse a large number of people helping students to copy, a police officer said.

The police action came a day after the Patna High Court directed the Bihar Police chief to deploy adequate security forces to ensure a check on cheating at examination centres.

In Ara, Bhojpur's district headquarters, police resorted to a baton charge to disperse people helping students to copy in the examination.

Nearly 100 people, mostly close relatives of students, were arrested in Saharsa district for helping students copy in the exam.

Over 1.4 million students are appearing in the Class 10 board examination.

In a bizarre case, dozens of people -- said to be family members of the students -- were seen climbing the walls of an exam centre and flinging answer sheets into various rooms where their wards were writing the exam in Vaishali district.

In Patna, Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development Upendra Kushwaha on Saturday said the central government has taken the reports of rampant cheating and mass copying seriously, and will seek a report from Bihar on the incidents of widespread cheating.

"The central government will demand a report from Bihar in connection with reports of widespread cheating in the Class 10 exam," Kushwaha told the media.

"It appears to be a failure of the state government to check cheating," he said.

He said the Patna High Court has rightly pointed out that it was "very shameful" for Bihar Education Minister P.K Shahi, who said it was not possible to hold free and fair exams.

"Shahi should resign in view of the court's observation against him," Kushwaha said.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar expressed "pain" over the wide publicity given to the pictures showing cheating in the state, and said it had sullied the image of Bihar.

"The reports of cheating in examination has given a bad name to Bihar," he said.