While the Kerala Police Tuesday registered a case in connection with the incident in the state’s Kollam district, the NTA has, in a statement issued Monday night, contested the charges, saying the the observers who were in charge of the examination centre did not report any such incident.
But the education ministry, under which the NTA comes, is likely to have a relook at the claims made by the observers. “The NTA holds three major entrances annually, of which the NEET is the largest with over 18 lakh registrations. This is an isolated incident but the ministry has taken it very seriously. NTA is sending a team to Kerala in this regard,” a senior official said.
In the complaint, the father of the candidate has alleged that “many students” who attended the exam at Mar Thoma Institute of Information and Technology at Ayur in Kollam were forced to remove their innerwear although this is not a requirement under norms mandated by the NTA, which conducts NEET.
The complaint prompted Kerala’s Higher Education Minister Dr R Bindu to describe the incident as “highly deplorable”
Meanwhile, according to the NTA statement, after being alerted about the incident through media reports, the agency sought immediate comments from the exam centre’s superintendent, the independent observer as well as the city coordinator (NEET) of Kollam district.
“All three of them, among other things, have stated that they did not find any such incident happening in the centre. The candidate did take the examination.
There was no representation/complaint to any one during or immediately after the examination. Nor has NTA received any email/complaint in this regard,” the statement said.
The centre superintendent dismissed the complaint as “fictitious”, while the city coordinator alleged it was made with “wrong intentions”. The observer said that he did not “directly observe any stripping of undergarments” as alleged, and that the student did not register any complaint with him even when she approached her.
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