‘Most students were from Navi Mumbai institutes’

MUMBAI: Most of the students allegedly involved in the engineering answer sheet scam are from institutes in Navi Mumbai, Sanjay Deshmukh, vice-chancellor, University of Mumbai, said in a statement issued to the media on Thursday.

HT Image

“We admit there has been a lapse of security. Our aim right now is to take all measures possible to avoid such instances in future. We have already started physically frisking and checking ID cards of employees, including those of senior officials, who enter or exit the Examination House,” said Deshmukh.

He said that at present, while one of the two buildings of the Examination House has 20 CCTV cameras, the second building, where the assessment finally takes, place has none. “We are finalising how many CCTVs will be needed and accordingly will begin work on installing the cameras. By frisking employees, we will cut down the chances of such instances by almost 80% to 90%,” he said.

To create a foolproof system, the university said it has also approached the commissioner of police, Mumbai, to form a security committee and review the system at MU. “This process could take about 6 to 8 weeks. We are hoping to get recommendations from the police on how to put in place a better security system,” said Deshmukh. MUMBAI: The Bhandup police have received a list from the Mumbai University (MU) comprising the names of 87 students, whom they suspect were beneficiaries of the engineering answer sheet scam. The police, who have recovered 97 answer sheets so far, are yet to identify the names of the other 10 alleged beneficiaries.

According to a source, the police will first approach the students’ parents as they want to record the students’ statements. “We will have to carefully approach this as they are students,” said an officer.

The police have so far arrested eight staffers of MU. “We have issued a notice to one Deepak Gamre asking him to record his statement. Preliminary investigations revealed Gamre was involved in taking answer sheets from the arrested accused, Siddheshwar Jadhav, 26, who had access to the storeroom where the answer sheets were kept, and handing it over to the students,” he said.

MU employees found guilty of involvement in the scam will be dealt with stringently, he said.