Daijiworld Media Network
Telangana, Jun 1: A Telangana student who committed suicide after failing a paper in the Telangana Board of Intermediate Education (TSBIE) exams was declared having passed on it its website, only to later be amended again and clarified that she had indeed failed.
Arutla Anamika ended her life on April 18, after she failed the Telugu paper in the intermediate exam scoring 20 marks.
However, revaluation scores on the TSBIE website revealed that Anamika had scored 48 and had passed. After this came to light, Anamika's family said that they would file a complaint against the Telangana Board of Intermediate Education for 'lying and negligence', as Anamika had passed the exam in revaluation with a difference of 28 marks.
"This is not a case of one or two marks; the difference is between 20 and 48 marks. How could they forget to calculate 28 marks? This is completely the fault of TSBIE and I will file a case against them," lashed out Anamika’s sister Udaya.
"Anamika, an NSS cadet, was shortlisted for training in Delhi and was confident of clearing the exams. However, the result came as shock to her and she took the extreme step," mourns Udaya.
However, hours later, BIE secretary A Ashok issued a press note saying Anamika did not pass the Telugu paper. "She did not get 48 marks but secured only 21, which was just one mark more than the original marks," Ashok said.
He further said that Anamika’s marks were wrongly uploaded as 48 "due to clerical mistake committed at the spot valuation center. The answer script clearly showed that she had got only 21, not 48," he said.
As many as 23 students killed themselves and three attempted suicide over the results, TSBIE secretary M Ashok had told the media. Out of the 23 students, 20 had failed and other students had passed but they took the extreme step as they secured marks lesser than their expectations.
Of the 9.43 lac students who appeared in the exams, only 5.60 lac had cleared in the results announced on April 18. In the revaluation a total of 1,137 students cleared the exams. Ashok however said that none of the students who had committed suicide because of failure had passed the examination. "They would have anyway failed even after re-verification," Ashok said.
Nevertheless, due to a series of suicides, many errors by the authorities in the valuation of answer scripts and processing the results came to light and this triggered a public outcry.
Child rights activist, Achyuta Rao said Balala Hakkula Sangham had filed a petition with the high court after which the court ordered TSBIE to upload the exam answer sheets of all students. However, 19,000 answer sheets are yet to be uploaded and officials are citing technical difficulties. This is contempt of court, he said.
He also demanded arrest of M Ashok and held him responsible for the death of 23 Intermediate students.
Responding to the new error regarding Anamika's marks, Rao demanded the resignation of the BIE secretary and said, "This is atrocious. How many times will the Intermediate board make mistakes and play with the lives of students?"