UP Police Special Task Force to probe Lucknow University exam leak (Representational image)
A Special Task Force (STF) of the Uttar Pradesh Police has been asked to probe the Lucknow University's (LU) L.L.B third semester paper leak case. Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Avanish Awasthi said: "The decision to involve the STF was taken on Thursday evening on the directives of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in view of the seriousness of the case. Who ever is found guilty will not be spared."
The LU has cancelled the L.L.B third semester examinations, that began earlier this month, after a series of audio clips went viral in which two men can be heard dictating questions expected in the tests to a woman.
The men are suspected to be law teachers and the woman is a student. The varsity had lodged an FIR against three persons, two of them named. "We have to track numbers from which calls were made and received, trace the owners and match audio samples," said an STF officer.
Meanwhile, the decision to cancel the examinations has triggered unrest among both, students and teachers. Agitated students locked the gates of the new campus on Thursday, forcing the authorities to also cancel the fifth semester L.L.B exams scheduled for the day.
The students later laid siege to the Vice-Chancellor's camp office in the old campus. They also took to the streets and disrupted traffic on the main road outside the old campus.
The officiating Vice-Chancellor S.K. Shukla assured them that their grievances would be sympathetically addressed. The students said that since the paper was leaked, it was unfair to cancel the entire examination. They argued that the cancellation would derail their plans for internships and other activities lined up after the exams.
As the student unrest threatened to snowball, heavy police deployment became necessary on the two campuses of the university. The Lucknow University Teachers' Association (LUTA) too was up in arms against the action taken and dubbed the suspension of law faculty members as arbitrary.
The L,L.B third semester examinations began in the first week of December. Four papers had already been held and the rest were scheduled for later this month. The decision has impacted more than 2,900 students.
