Fire in school destroys public exam answer sheets

Vellore, Tamil Nadu, Apr 25 (UNI) A fire at the Voorhees Higher Secondary School destroyed 10,000 Standard X Public Examination answer scripts kept in one of the rooms in the school premises.

Police said the room in which the answer sheets were stored for correction had four doors. Three of them were shut from inside and main door was locked. Two watchmen and an equal number of policemen were posted on guard duty.

Noticing smoke coming out from the room at around 2230 hrs yesterday, the policemen alerted the Fire Services Personnel who doused the fire However, 10,000 answer scripts were destroyed in the mishap.

A total of 30,000 English II answer papers from the Villupuram Education District were kept in the room when the incident occurred.

DIG R Pichai, SP Arivuchelvam and Chief Education Officer R Pichai rushed to the spot for an on the spot assessment.

Forensic Department officials also visited the school to look for any possible clues of sabotage.

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