Imphal, June 08: The proscribed KYKL has taken into its custody two deans and four Heads of Department of Manipur University in connection with an alleged mark tampering case.

The six MU faculty members were pulled up by activists of the outfit's Operation New Kangleipak to investigate into the mark tampering case related to selection/admission of PhD research scholars in the varsity.

parading the six somewhere in Thoubal district today, an ONK spokesman contended that an initial inquiry by the outfit came across mark tampering and other anomalies such as double ticking, over-marking and under-marking in the answer scripts of prospectus of candidates for the PhD course.

The six paraded included deans of School of Social Science prof M Jitendra and Prof O Ibochouba of School of Humanities, and Heads of Department of Philosophy Prof S Lokendrajit, English Department's Prof Th Ratankumar, Commerce Department's Dr N Tejmani and Manipuri Department's Prof N Aruna Devi.

Contending that no less than four clear signs of mark tampering could be detected in the entrance examination for selection of 15 candidates in Manipuri Department, the spokesman doubted the selection procedure by posing how could some gold medallists miss the cut off grade.

He also claimed that owing to pressure from certain quarters and biases on the part of MU authorities number of seats for the PhD course in manipuri was increased to 17 from the original capacity of 15 .

With regard to English Department, the spokesman alleged that marking allocation to certain candidates were found to be dubiously high compared to low mark provision to many candidates who seem to lack clout in the varsity's faculties thereby ruining their academic career.

In the entrance examination for short-listing six research scholars in Philosophy double tickings had been detected whereas certain questions in the Commerce entrance test confused the candidates as there could be two possible answers for a particular question, the spokesman maintained.

Asking MU authorities to initiate appropriate punitive action against those faculty members for their indulgence in mark tampering and favouritism, the ONK functionary cautioned that severe action would be taken in case such irregularities recur while remarking that KYKL would be closely monitoring whether the guilty ones are punished or not.

Commenting on the alleged irregularity, Prof Lokendrajit of Philosophy Department explained that the questions were of objective type and in one answer script 'double ticking' could be detected which was subsequently pointed out by the examiner and referred for further perusal.

With the matter discussed by the faculty members the same was approved as 'revise ticking', the professor informed.

On the otherhand, English Department's Prof Ratankumar conceded that there had been some anomalies in mark allotment concerning essay type question carrying 50 mark with some candidate getting higher marks and some less for the same question.

Similar confession was made by the head of Commerce Department Dr Tejmani stating that one particular question was answerable with slight alteration.

All measures would be taken to ensure such goof-up do not recur in the future entrance tests, the professor pledged.

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