As Paper Leaks Rock Uttarakhand, Police’s Treatment of Protesters Come as a Fresh Blow

‘Are we terrorists or criminals? Why have our names and addresses been made public in the newspapers?’

Dehradun: Paper leaks have kept Uttarakhand on the boil, with students demanding an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the alleged leaks which have taken place in the last seven years.

In the meantime, police have booked 13 students under charges of riots and attempt to murder, over protests against paper leaks. Students have alleged high-handedness and brutality on the part of the cops.

Successive leaks

Question papers from exams of the Uttarakhand Public Service Commission (UKPSC) and the Uttarakhand Subordinate Service Selection Commission were leaked in 2022. 

In the past year alone, there have been leaks of question papers in exams taken to recruit for the positions of Junior Engineer, Assistant Engineer (JE-AE), and Lekhpal Patwari.

The Uttarakhand government established a committee to seek solutions to curb the ongoing leaks and by late 2022, brought in a change of guard. The UKPSC was handed control of the JE-AE test and other exams that UKSSC had previously been in charge of.

In January this year, however, papers in multiple recruitment exams were once again leaked. UKPSC section officer Sanjeev Chaturvedi told the special investigation team that this was not the first time that he had leaked a paper and added that the had done so in the previous four years too. A section officer is a key position holder in the recruitment process.

According to the special investigation team, three students had purchased the leaked materials and took the JE exam. The same was done by five in the AE test. No official figures have been released for the other exams and investigation is ongoing.

Successive paper leaks have left batches of government job hopefuls disappointed.

The 2016 exam for village panchayat development officers was found to have irregularities. The recent UKPSC exam was canceled after it was discovered that exam papers had been stolen and sold off. The same happened for the UKSSSC exam for 916 positions in December 2021.

Agitation

On February 8, students sat in a meeting at Dehradun’s Gandhi Park where they intended to discuss how to move the protest ahead. The demonstrations started in the same park that evening with students holding a largely silent sit-in protest. But by late evening, police started to make rounds in the park and requested that they leave before it got late.

The students were ultimately ordered out of the park by the authorities at around 11.30 pm. Some have alleged that policemen dragged and mistreated women students. “The gathering was quite small. Sheela, who was dragged by one of the policemen, said that the officers at the site were drunk,” said a young woman at the protest.

Another woman present that evening said there were no policewomen and that cops “thrashed them mercilessly.” This woman also said that she could smell alcohol on the cops.

“One of them came close to my face and said ‘Will you be the one to tell us if we can drink or not’?” she said.

All protesters, including the women, were taken to Ekta Vihar in a bus. This was a barren field, which the protesters say, had no lights. At around 12.30 am, cops asked the protesters to leave.

Reaction

On February 9, several students gathered close to the same Gandhi Park. Students also gathered at Ghanta Ghar. 

By then, news of the protest and police action spread through social media, bolstered by videos of cops appearing to beat the students.

The protesters said that as a result on February 9, they noticed an increase in the number of police officers stationed at their protest site.

By 4 pm, there was a commotion when cops began to lathicharge the students. Between the Clock Tower and Rajpur Road, the roadways were congested with hundreds of protesters. Numerous students were hurt as police began to lathi-charge them after the students refused to leave and clear the road. 

Some of the students said that while the protest took place under the umbrella of the Berozgar Yuva Sangh, several other parties had extended support. “The Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha was also part of the march. We think they were the ones to first pelt stones at police, even though the blame fell on us,” a Students Federation of India leader said.

Protesters said that a man who was not even a part of the protests suffered an injury to his head as a result of police beating. 

Protesting students fear more police action in the days ahead. Some of their names and addresses have also been published in newspapers.

“Are we terrorists or criminals? Why have our names and addresses been made public in the newspaper? This is nothing but a dictatorship,” one of the protesters said.

A woman quoted earlier in this report noted how a friend of hers, while narrating the situation for an NDTV broadcast, was arrested while giving an interview.

A magisterial inquiry has since been ordered on the lathi charge incident on youth protesters.

The state government under Chief Minister Pushkar Dhami, a day later, brought an anti-copying ordinance, which would subject anyone found engaging in cheating operations during recruitment exams, to a life sentence and a fine of up to Rs 10 crore.

For one of the protesters, this means little. “The leaks are interfering with our future. We prepare for exams with our whole hearts. These are positions that become available after a lengthy 6-7 year wait. A UKPSC position was last advertised in 2015,” the hopeful said.

Edited by Soumashree Sarkar.