Men dictated answers from the window, nobody stopped them

Mathura, Mar 24: "Spotters" on motorcycles are parked strategically every 500 metres or so on the road to an exam centre at Shyam Lal Inter College in Farah, Mathura district. Their job is to send out an alert to "embedded moles" if anyone suspicious approaches the test centres.

A local contact has assured me that by the time I reach the school, a message would have been flashed and "everything there would be normal". I could just walk into the hall where students are taking the exams, no questions asked. He was right. There are parents, students and teachers, all milling around. As I walk into the centre, no one, including cops, thinks it necessary to stop me and demand to know who I am, though it has been a long time since I looked like a school student.

It's 7.50am on Thursday and Class X students are taking the Science exam. There is a teacher in the room. The students, who are sitting with their desks almost joined together, are busy writing.

Just then, a voice booms out from one of the windows. ''Pehla wala khatam ho gaya? Ab doosra likho (You've written the first answer? Now write the second one)." A cheating mafia man then patiently dictates one answer after another until he finishes the whole paper.

My next destination is Radha Gopal Inter College in Raya, where the scene is even more bizarre. Here, some parents are sitting beside their children and solving their papers in a concerted effort. Teachers stroll around, but it's as if the cheating is invisible to them. The students are talking loudly and dictating answers to each other. After a question is finished, someone trots up to a tout standing outside and prompts him to start the next answer. All this takes place right under the nose of college authorities and police.

According to sources, each of these students had paid anything between Rs 5,000 and Rs 15,000 for "help" from the cheating mafia, also called "nakal mafia" locally. These "cheating packages" -- of Rs 5,000, Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000 -- have been specially designed by the mafia to meet the needs of "all kinds of students".

Sources said while Rs 5,000 is charged from students who come and write their papers with the help of their own cheating material, Rs 10,000 is charged from students who opt for dictation of the correct answers. The highest package, of Rs 15,000, is for students who just come to mark their attendance and their papers are written by touts and their agents. Students sit together in groups according to the packages. There have been instances in the past when students, believing in their own merit, have refused to shell out money to the mafia and were threatened and beaten into submission.

Sadanand Gupta, SDM at Maant, admitted that this problem existed and blamed school authorities for it. He said the police was trying its best to stop this but the mafia always found ways to hoodwink them.

Mathura ADM A K Awasthi said so far 55 students have been caught for cheating and their copies marked out. He said the final decision on the fate of these kids would be taken by the education board.

District education officer, Mathura, Indra Prakash Singh said he has issued notice to 35 schools in Mathura, asking them to "give in writing" that cheating has not taken place at their centres. He said if he gets any evidence of cheating, such schools would be blacklisted for five years.

Back at Radha Gopal Inter College in the afternoon, the students have finished their exam and are coming out. One of the touts who dictated the answers asks a group, "Kaise kiya (How did you do)?" The kids giggle. "Bahut accha (very good). Thank you."