Stolen answer sheets Guilty candidates may face three-year ban

RAWALPINDI, March 30: The candidates whose roll number slips have been recovered along with stolen solved answer sheets from a schoolteacher in Rawat are likely to face three-year ban. The Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) has decided to scrutinise their answer sheets and, if found guilty of being involved in solving the paper, take stern action against them, Dawn has learnt. As many as 43 roll number slips were recovered by Rawat police from Waqar Satti, a private schoolteacher, as he was caught with 522 solved answer sheets he had allegedly stolen from the United Bank Limited, Chowk Pindorian branch. The slips were of the candidates appearing in the annual secondary school certificate examination part-I, 2010. "The roll number slips can be used as evidence against the students and the fate of other students would be decided by the BISE disciplinary committee," said Controller Examination Abdul Sattar Ramay. He said the examination body had taken into the custody the sheets the Rawat police recovered on Sunday night from two men. According to the rules of the board, the candidates could face three-year ban from appearing in the annual examination. The results of the could be withheld till the disciplinary committee concluded its probe. "A disciplinary committee comprising four senior professors and teachers would decide unfair means cases while another would soon be constituted scrutinize the recovered answer sheets," the controller said. Majority of the candidates whose sheets were recovered are private candidates, the controller said.Meanwhile, the additional secretary of Punjab higher education department, Chaudhry Mohammad Akram, looking into the matter to ascertain the role of the officials of Rawalpindi BISE in the case declared the low rank officials of secrecy branch of the board as guilty for not collecting the answer sheets from the bank in time. A superintendent of the secrecy branch had already been suspended along with two clerks and the rest of the officials would get suspension soon after Chaudhry Mohammad Akram found them guilty. In another development Rawat police obtained two days physical remand of Ahmed, the guard of UBL, and Sajjid Ali, a sweeper in the bank from the area magistrate to question them about how the answer sheets were stolen from the bank. Rawat SHO Chaudhry Mehdi Khan said police was trying to arrest the main accused Zahir Shah as he was on the run.