Question papers go missing, Bengal teachers' test rescheduled

The West Bengal government on Friday rescheduled the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) examinations scheduled for Sunday, after a bag of question papers "mysteriously" went missing.

Announcing the rescheduling of the exam, state Education Minister Partha Chatterjee said the West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE) has been directed to initiate legal action against the Posts and Telegraph Department whose services were availed to transport the question papers to Hooghly district.

A window of the bus carrying the bags of question papers was found broken and subsequently one of the bags was reported to be missing.

"Since the question papers have not been traced yet, we have decided to cancel the August 30 exam. It has now been rescheduled to October 4," Chatterjee said.

"It is not clear whether the question papers were lost in transit or something else happened. Since this is a recruitment exam, and there is a lack of transparency on what happened, we are cancelling the exam," the minister said.

Slamming the postal department, Chatterjee said the WBBPE has been directed to initiate "necessary legal action" against it.

Meanwhile, the opposition Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party slammed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress for the fiasco.

"The TET has now taken the shape of a scam. In the garb of exam, the Trinamool is fleecing the students. This is yet another example of how this government has taken the state to complete anarchy," state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said.

BJP legislator Samik Bhattacharya said the incident was a reflection of the "complete anarchy" brought by the Trinamool.

Earlier in July, the entrance test for the Industrial Training Institutes (ITI) was rescheduled after question papers were leaked and were allegedly being sold across several districts.