Nagpur: Three files carrying the data of nearly 3,000 Bachelor of Engineering (BE) final-year examinees of Nagpur University (NU) have been found to be tampered with. These students were marked “all absent” for the online papers held in the last two weeks.
In the notice to which these files have been attached, the students have been asked to re-appear in the exam on Thursday.
The tampered files and the notice have gone viral on social media. The file pertaining to BE Civil 8th semester has details of 2,621 examinees, while the other two files have records of 273 examinees.
The files have been found to be forged to the extent of having only wrong information about attendance of examines. Rest of the data such as roll number, name, mobile number and subject is same as in the NU records.
NU has planned re-exam for all those affected students who failed to login into the ‘Pariksha App’ on their exam date due to server snags, software failure and other issues. The university had been claiming to have conducted the exams successfully for more than 95% students after initial hiccups.
A JD College of Engineering student said they heaved a sigh of relief after correct files were received by the college. “Just a couple of students need to reappear. All of us had submitted the paper despite glitches and repeated attempts,” the student said.
Another student from Kamptee said they are worried as the personal mobile numbers of many girls had gone viral.
Demanding a high level inquiry into the data leak, student activist and former Management Council member Mahendra Nimbarte said this clearly indicates the files have been leaked from the Exam Section itself.
“The Amravati University has blacklisted Promarc Company, but NU is paying it in crores despite these serious blunders and compromising with students’ data. This is not the first time such data has been leaked, but for years NU hasn’t taken any action. Promarc must be blacklisted for maligning NU’s image and wasting resources” he said.
Though Board of Examinations and Evaluations (BoEE) director Prafulla Sable didn’t pick up TOI’s calls, a senior Promarc official said the data wasn’t leaked from their side. “It may have happened from the university’s side, we don’t interact with the students directly. Probably, some official could have sent that data to the students. But now, NU has taken corrective measures. It has emailed the entire data directly to the college’s login, from where it would be sent to their respective examinees,” he said.