Punjab board exams: Seven proxy candidates were held during the exam

Seven persons were arrested on Monday for allegedly appearing as proxy candidates during the class X English exam at the Sant Singh Sukha Singh Modern High School in Tarn Taran.

Seven students, who hired the proxy candidates have also been booked but no arrests have been made by the police in the case so far. The exam was being conducted by the PSEB for the students who are enrolled under the Indira Gandhi National Open School scheme.

Police said that Om Parkash, Baljinder Singh, Navjot Kaur, Nachhatar Singh, Rohan Kumar, Harjinder Singh and Hardev Singh had ‘stood in' for Sajan Singh, Sukhchain Singh, Kanwaljit Kaur, Gurkanwaljit Singh, Rohit Kumar, Rajbinder Singh and Hira Singh.

The proxy candidates were spotted by the exam centre superintendent Jagdeep Singh and staffers Paramjit Kaur and Sumit Kumar. The police was informed and all the 14 candidates have been booked under IPC section 420.

In a separate incident, affiliation of seven schools in Tarn Taran was cancelled after incident of mass copying was reported in all the schools.
Tarn Taran city SHO Maninder Singh said, “We are yet to investigate if the arrested accused were paid for appearing as proxy candidates or whether it was because of personal equations. Two of the arrested are from Amritsar and one is from Ferozepur. We will probe all angles.”