Amid an increasing uprise in Kashmir, mass-copying, (which was also infamously known as examinations) when militancy was at its peak in in the early 1990s, is making a comeback in the valley.
In the latest incident, evidence of mass-copying during the graduate-level exams for recruitment into government services conducted by Jammu and Kashmir Service Selection Board (JKSSB) has come to notice.
The pictures of examinations which was held on April 27, 2017, evidently show that candidates resorting to copying and interacting with each other as if they are enjoying a free class rather than taking a competitive exam.
In one of the pictures, believed to have been captured on a smartphone at an exam center in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district, shows two candidates sharing a single desk.
Though the JKSSB denies the allegations of “any such incident”, senior officials in the administration have confirmed the complaints. Attributing copying to the prevalent situation in Kashmir, officials say that the menace has started since the unrest erupted in Kashmir in summer of 2016 after the killing of militant Burhan Wani.
Ironically, the government acted upon such complaints only when the pictures were leaked in media. In February 2017, the Jammu and Kashmir State Board of School Education (JKBOSE) cancelled the exams for grade 10 only after pictures revealing the candidates getting additional help from windows were leaked. “Others who resorted to copying without being caught on camera were given a benefit of doubt,” says a senior police official.
The menace of resorting to unfair means was at its highest in 1990. As the folklore goes, those days many examinees would threaten the examination staff by claiming to be militants. At places, the examinees would even carry arms like grenades and pistols to the exam centers and keep it on their desk as a warning!
“The copying would be so blind, that many a candidate would copy verbatim from textbooks and even write things like ‘For further details refer to page 394’. Others would even draw pointed fingers as shown on guides for quick reference,” recalls a JKBOSE official.
Interestingly, those who qualified their exams in 1990 continue to be ridiculed for their knowledge as Namath Pass. Namath in Kashmiri means the 90s!
