New Delhi: The ‘leaked’ National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET) question paper, the circulation of a screenshot of which on Telegram resulted in the cancellation of the common exam held on 18 June, has been found to have been “doctored”, ThePrint has learnt.
This would mean that the UGC-NET question paper wasn’t compromised, contrary to initial suspicions.
According to sources in government, on 18 June, a school student used an app to create a doctored screenshot of the original question paper, backdated 17 June. He shared this screenshot on social media to convince people he had access to the paper from before the exam, as well as the upcoming UGC-NET subject-specific question papers. He then earned a few thousand rupees by promising to send people the next paper, said sources.
Over nine lakh candidates wrote the common exam across 317 cities.
Sources also revealed that the National Forensic Sciences University in Gandhinagar has looked into the authenticity of the screenshot.
“The screenshot was found to be a fake. It was created using a special application. The screenshot was of the original exam paper and had the date 17 June, that is, a day before the date of the examination. This date was forged in the screenshot to make people believe that the person has access to the next paper too,” the source said.
The National Cybercrime Threat Analysis Unit of the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) first detected the threat. When the questions in the screenshot were tallied with the original set, they matched. The MHA then informed the Ministry of Education about a possible “breach”.
A complaint was then filed in the matter, saying the National Testing Agency (NTA) conducted the UGC-NET exam on 18 June in two shifts across different cities, but on 19 June, the University Grants Commission (UGC) received inputs from the I4C, saying “integrity of the aforesaid examination may be compromised”.
Subsequently, the Ministry of Education cancelled the examination for entry-level teaching jobs in Indian universities and admission to PhD programmes just a day after it was held. The exam will again be held between 21 August and 4 September.
The case is under probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation, which has also been probing the NEET leak case.
The agency will be filing a report in the NET case in the next two to three weeks, said sources.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
Also read: Great Indian exam scandal: NEET, UGC-NET & now CSIR-UGC NET, frustrated students say NTA ‘incapable’