Persons claiming to be ‘HSSLC students’ have started an online petition demanding investigation into the allegation that the English question paper of the ongoing Class 12 examination, being conducted by Nagaland Board of School Education (NBSE), had leaked. The petition had till 9:00 pm on Wednesday garnered 1,163 signatures.

17,911 students sat for the English paper on 12th February, the first day of the examination.

The petitioners claimed that the questions that made up for over 50 marks of the total 80 marks had been circulating on social media the night before the exam day. Refusing to accept that those were mere suggestions, the petitioners stated, “this claim is baseless as it is known for a fact that you cannot predict English questions with this much accuracy.”

The ‘HSSLC students’ also raised queries as to how the exact three idioms and phrases were suggested from a book that contains over 160 idioms and phrases. Further, they also highlighted that the Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) on the message and that on the question paper were the same.

“Not only these, but even questions from the writing section were in the messages. To guess questions from the writing section is not humanly possible, it can only be done by the person who has set the question” the petitioners said while maintaining that “These are not suggestions but are actually question leaked in disguise.”

The ‘HSSLC students’ have therefore urged Nagaland’s higher Education Minister Temjen Imna Along to intervene and NBSE to initiate a thorough investigation into the matter and “uphold its commitment to fair examinations.”

Further, the ‘students’ are also demanding that “the teacher who had leaked the questions and the students involved must bear serious consequences” and also that students be made to re-appear the English subject or be compensated in the form of marks.

The Nagaland Board of School Education (NBSE) is yet to make any official statement on the issue.