Nearly 400 members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidya Parishad’s (ABVP), the BJP’s youth wing, staged a protest outside the Bangalore University on Friday, seeking a probe into the exam ‘evaluation scam’ that was unearthed by the University. On January 5, the varsity had registered a complaint against a private firm after finding out that it had allegedly tampered with Optical Mark Reader (OMR) answer sheets of as many as 804 students while scanning them.
“The employee at the private firm named Charan Babu in a letter to the company has admitted that he has under the pressure of certain influencers from the university indulged in malpractice, yet the university is not taking any action other than filing an FIR,” Harsha Narayan, a member of ABVP, told TNM.
Registrar (Administration) K Jyothi, according to Deccan Herald, demanded an inquiry against the private firm, which has been given the tender since 2018 to scan the scripts and upload the marks of Under-Graduate and Post-Graduate courses. She had also said that the university will conduct an internal inquiry as well.
However, the ABVP has said that when a question paper was leaked in 2018, the university had been inactive then as well. Harsha Narayan further alleged that the varsity, like in 2018, will merely register a complaint with the police and not punish the culprits. “We demand that the university take action against the culprits sooner. They should set up a committee and probe the matter,” he added.
The ABVP has said that the University's Vice Chancellor, Venugopala, has accepted the ABVP's appeal and has assured that stringent legal action will be taken immediately.
The University syndicate, the highest decision-making body at the varsity, met on Tuesday, January 6 and decided to withdraw results of the students involved in the scam. They also decided to approach the Criminal Investigation Department and hand the case over to them.
ABVP’s Harsha Narayan also alleged that there was a land scam on the university campus as well. “A private entity took over a part of university land. Of the 1,000-acre land, they have taken over 227 acres of land,” Narayan claimed, further adding that they have demanded the state government’s intervention into the matter.