Varanasi: A sector magistrate on Tuesday directed the Haldi police of Ballia district to lodge an FIR against in charge of a UP Board examination centre and four others after coming across mass copying at the centre.SO Haldi Sunil Kumar Singh said, “An FIR has been lodged against centre manager and four others under section 3/7/9 of UP Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act on the complaint given by the sector magistrate.”District inspector of schools (DIoS) Ballia Bhaskar Mishra said, “Details of sector magistrate’s complaint are being probed.”Though the UP Board exams had begun on February 7, the paper of Hindi (compulsory) of High School and Intermediate with maximum participation of students was scheduled on Tuesday and all officials including zonal and sector magistrates entrusted with the task of checking copying were on an alert.When a sector magistrate, Gulab Chandra, raided an examination centre at Mahavir Singh Inter College in Badilpur under Haldi police jurisdiction, he allegedly came across mass copying in some halls. After inspection, Chandra sought an explanation from centre manager Pramod Kumar Singh. On failing to get a satisfactory reply, he gave a written complaint to the police, asking to lodge a named FIR against Singh and four others.The magistrate said that instead of stopping students from copying, the invigilators were facilitating them. He added that he suspected involvement of copying mafia in view of over 700 students present at the centre that had a capacity of only 206.DIoS Ballia said, “The college is located in a part of the district where the number of aided colleges, preferred while setting up examination centres, is very low. Thus, the number of students allotted to this centre for examination was higher than its capacity. The centre manager had brought this issue to the knowledge of Board officials but he was asked to manage the situation.”He added that issues like sharing answers and copying, role of invigilators and other irregularities mentioned by the sector magistrate in his complaint would be probed with the help of CCTVs and voice recorders installed at the centre.Meanwhile, over 18% registered students quit the paper of Hindi (compulsory) in the first session of exams on Tuesday morning. “Strict measures compelled 15,799 of total 87,093 registered HS students in the district to skip the paper. In all, a total 18.14% students quit examination in morning session while detailed figures of students who quit the Intermediate exam in the second session is awaited,” the DIoS added.

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