In a first, BOPEE installs 800 jammers at exam centres

Dinesh Manhotra

Tribune News Service

Jammu, May 15

The J&K Board of Professional Entrance Examinations (BOPEE) had installed mobile jammers in all exam centres across J&K during the Common Entrance Test (CET) held on May 14 and 15.

The jammers were installed to prevent mobile phones, chips, bluetooths or any other instrument from receiving signals. This was the first-of-its-kind experiment in the country to stop tech-savvy students from resorting to unfair means during the exam.

“The CET exam was conducted at 54 centres across state (34 in the Valley and 20 in the Jammu region). Jammers were installed in all centres to frustrate the evil designs of some tech-savvy candidates,” said GM Tantray, chairman of BOPEE.

He said the BOPEE authorities had authentic information that some candidates were going to use cell phones through bluetooths or other instruments to resort to unfair means in the exam.

“It was only after the inputs that we installed jammers in all exam centres,” Tantry said.

The entrance exam board was involved in controversies in recent past and had a daunting task to restore its credibility during the CET.

Of the 33,218 candidates, 29,294 appeared in the exam today across the state.

The BOPEE authorities had a reason to install the jammers because a number of cases of the misuse of cell phones during the exam were reported in the past.

During an exam recently, the supervising authorities had found 21 students at a centre using cell phones for cheating.

Although the authorities are tight-lipped over the total number of jammers used to conduct a free and fair CET, sources said nearly 800 such instruments were installed across the state.

On an average, one jammer was installed for every 45 students.

“Such a huge numbers of jammers were not available with forces in J&K so the BOPEE authorities had hired a security agency from outside the state to install the instruments,” a source said, adding that a huge expenditure was involved in the process.