Mumbai: As many as 516 answer-sheets of Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exams were allegedly stolen from a Dahisar school last week. The school authorities complained to the police that the papers were stolen by a man disguised as a scrap dealer.
The Charkop police are investigating the case. Kiran Kumar Chavan, deputy commissioner of police (zone XII), said, “The school principal approached us on April 8 and we have registered a case under section 380 (theft) of the Indian Panel code against an unidentified person.”
“There is no CCTV cameras in the area where the answer sheets were kept so we will inquire the staff of the school about the scrap dealer,” added Chavan
The answer-sheets were given to Isra Vidyalaya at Dahisar East by the Maharashtra state board for evaluation, after the SSC exams concluded on April 1. The answer-sheets were largely unchecked and were stored in the principal’s cabin.
“The incident took place on April 3 around 1pm when most of the teachers had gone for lunch,” said school principal Narendra Pathak, who has registered a complaint with the Dahisar police station. “The man came to my cabin to collect old papers. I stepped away for 10-15 minutes and he ran away with the answer papers.”
Pathak is worried whether the incident will affect the SSC results, which are usually announced in June. He immediately informed the Mumbai divisional board about the incident. “With so many papers going missing, it might affect the exam results. I am very stressed by the whole affair,” said Pathak.
Mumbai divisional board authorities said before taking any action they would wait until the police investigation was completed. “We request students not to worry, we are positive that the police will find the papers,” said Siddeshwar Chandekar, divisional secretary of the Mumbai division.
