Guwahati:
The Chancellor of University of Science and Technology, Meghalaya (USTM), Mahbabul Haque, was arrested for alleged malpractices during the ongoing CBSE examinations late on Friday, police said on Saturday.
Mr Haque, whose Education and Research Development (ERD) Foundation runs the Central Public School in Assam’s Sribhumi district, was arrested by a joint team of the police and the Special Task Force from his residence in Ghoramara in Guwahati.
According to police sources, Mr Haque has been accused of disrupting the Class 12 Physics exam at Kendriya Vidyalaya – one of the exam centres – on Friday.
Mr Haque allegedly took money from the students of his school in exchange for external help in answering the question paper, the sources said. Trouble, however, broke out at the centre when the students alleged no help was provided to them, the sources added.
“A total of 274 students had appeared at Kendriya Vidyalaya, including 214 from Central Public School,” a source said.
There was no immediate comment from Mr Haque’s family or his lawyer at the time of writing this report.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who has often targeted Mr Haque over a range of issues, including allegations of “flood jihad”, said the state government will ensure that education is not transformed into business.
“For some time now, I have been observing a large network which promises students that they will ensure high marks for them, and ahead of medical and engineering entrance and CBSE-conducted exams, the examination centres of these students are changed to some specific schools,” he said.
“Over 200 students under the CBSE curriculum from Goalpara, Nagaon and Kamrup districts were taken to a centre in Pathakarndi in Sribhumi, hundreds of kilometres from their home, this time also. When the students did not get any opportunity to score easy marks, they created a ruckus and the issue came to the fore,” he added.
Sarma claimed that such fraud measures are not limited to CBSE-conducted exams alone, but are happening in medical entrance exams as well.
“This person (Mr Haque) is a big fraud, his entire background is fraud. He has been trying to mislead the people by bringing a few intellectuals under his influence,” he said.
Last year, Mr Haque was embroiled in a controversy last year over his OBC certificate, which he had obtained “fraudulently” in Sribhumi district in the 1990s.
The Chief Minister in August said a police case would be registered against the USTM Chancellor for allegedly fraudulently obtaining the OBC certificate, which was cancelled subsequently.
Mr Sarma had also held USTM and Mr Haque responsible for “flood jihad” against Guwahati, claiming that the water flowing down from the varsity campus, which is located on a hill adjacent to the city, leads to massive flooding in the Assam capital.