Evaluation racket: Students on rampage on day 2

Lucknow, Aug 14: Even after the Uttar Pradesh government's announcement to order a high level probe into the alleged evaulation of answer sheets racket of Chaudhury Charan Singh University, students continued to demonstrate and stage violent agitation against the University officials in Meerut and Agra for the second day today.

Students tried to ransack the office of the Vice-Chancellor at Meerut and staged road blockade at several places. In Agra too, the students continued their agitation and held demonstration at several places.

In Agra, a raid was conducted at the residence of the registrar of the university who is the 'main accused in the racket'.

State Higher Education Minister Ramasrey Vishwakarma told sources here a high level probe has been ordered over the controversy as governemnt would not allow vested forces to play with the future of the students.

''I have directed the officials concerned for an indepth probe and submit its report at the earliest so that the guilty are punished,'' he said.

Mr Vishwakarma said the government has also ordered reevaulation of the answer sheets of the affected students.

Yesterday, agitated students locked up the house of the Vice Chancellor of Chaudhary Charan Singh University in Meerut after hearing of a racket in evaluating answer sheets of professional courses run by the varsity.

Altogether six people, including the son of the University Registrar, were arrested in Agra after a police team found an ''evaluation centre'' in a house in city's Lawyers' Colony, where minors and some youth were checking answer sheets of professional courses including BBA, BCA, BPT, Law from various institutes affiliated to the Chaudhary Charan Singh University.

Police said while some of those checking the sheets were class V or VI students, the rest were graduates.

The bogus evaluators were being paid Rs 6 to 10 for each answer sheet and the 'racket' had been going on for a long time, claimed the police.

Some sheets had tick marks, but no marks apparently as the 'evaluator' was unsure about the marks 'negotiated'. The police said RP Singh, son of the Registrar of the CCS University BL Arya, was the brain behind the racket. R P Singh, a research scholar, had got a contract to evaluate one lakh answer sheets in Meerut.

Police said they recovered about 10,000 answer sheets from the house, while more answer sheets of the CCS University were dumped elsewhere in Agra. About 2,000 answer sheets of professional courses were found from a field in a Fatehpur Sikri village.

Most of the answer sheets were of MBA and LLB courses. More surfaced in the Patholi area.

UNI