4 jailed, 23 detained over cheating

Four people, including three admission seekers, were jailed for two years each for their involvement in cheating in the undergraduate entry tests of Dhaka University and Jagannath University yesterday.

Besides, 23 others, including some aspirants, were detained by law enforcement agencies before the tests for allegedly trying to adopt unfair means.

Hasibul Hasan Shanto was caught at Mohammadpur Model School and College centre while using a high-tech electronic device to receive answers from outside the exam hall during the DU's "Ka" unit admission test, held between 10:00am and 11:30am.

The device is similar to the ones detectives recovered from three candidates just before the business studies faculty admission test on October 16.

The Chinese-made device looks like a regular credit card but works like a mobile phone and a tiny wireless ball-like earphone sets one up for two-way communication. One just needs to put the tiny ball inserted in the ear and the device in the shirt pocket or wallet, said DU Prof Mizanur Rahman, who was an invigilator of the exam hall.

Shanto claimed that he had got it from Farhad Mahmud, a final year student of information technology department of the DU. They two had cut a deal in which Farhad was supposed to provide answers to the admission questions through the device and in exchange, Shanto would pay him Tk 5 lakh.

The DU authorities searched Room 608 of Amar Ekushey Hall on the campus where Farhad lives. However, he had already gone into hiding.

A mobile court led by Executive Magistrate Mousumi Mahbub jailed Shanto for two years.

During the "A" unit entry test of the JnU that started at 3:00pm, admission seeker Abdur Rahman Majumder was caught for using the same credit-card-like device. Based on his information, the university authorities held his accomplice Kafil Uddin Mahmud from outside the campus.

Another candidate, Masudur Rahman, was arrested for using the device at Dhaka City College centre during the test.

The three were awarded with two years' imprisonment by a mobile court led by Executive Magistrate Nazma Nahar.

About an hour before the JnU admission test, two youths were caught in front of the DU Central Mosque while they were negotiating a deal over leaking the question paper, said DU Proctor AM Amzad.

One of them, identified as Malek Sheikh, is an undergraduate student of psychology at Dhaka College and, according to the proctor, is a member of a syndicate that leaks question papers for selling them to admission seekers.

The other was a girl, a JnU admission candidate, said she was asked by a teacher of a coaching centre to contact Malek for JnU's "A" unit questions and the answers.

While they were confined at the proctor's office, Malek received a number of text messages containing questions and answers on his mobile phone around 3:00pm when the JnU admission test started, this correspondent witnessed.

Malek claimed the messages sent by Kazi Kaushik, a former ruling party student leader of Dhaka College. He was later handed over to the police while the girl was released.

On Thursday night, detectives detained 12 people including some admission aspirants for their alleged involvement in adopting "unlawful means" to secure entry to the DU.

The law enforcers first caught Zubair Hossain, who passed the HSC from Residential Model College in the capital. He gathered 20 other candidates like him at Tejturi Bazar and was planning to go to a mess in Nakhal Para to meet a fraud gang, said DU Proctor AM Amzad.

The fraudsters had made promises to get the candidates admitted to the DU through some "shady way", he said.

On Zubair's information, detectives later detained 12 people from different places in the capital.

Another 10 people were held from different areas of Old Dhaka yesterday morning for their alleged involvement in selling fake question papers and striking deals to get candidates admitted to the JnU and Jahangirnagar University through illegal means, said Deputy Commissioner (Media) Muntasirul Islam of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

Legal actions against them were underway, he said.

A total of 71,350 candidates vied for 1,660 seats in different science departments of the DU while 57,703 students sat for 760 seats of the JnU this year.