The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Tuesday claimed that no scanner pen was recovered by the Faridkot Police in the Pharmacy Officers’ paper leak case, releasing the recovery memo to assert that only a Bluetooth receiver and a miniature headphone were seized from the accused students.
Addressing a press conference here, senior SAD leader Parambans Singh Romana, who released copies of the recovery memo as well as the FIR to the media, said, “This means that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and its senior leaders, including Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and Manish Sisodia, are trying to create a false narrative that this is merely a cheating case in which a scanner pen was used to transmit the question paper outside the examination centre and that there was no paper leak. When no scanner pen has been recovered, it means the paper leak occurred in advance.”
Presenting his case forcefully, Mr. Romana said, “Let me make it clear. Had the incident of some students being caught with Bluetooth devices not been reported in the media, the AAP government would not even have registered a case in the matter.”
He said this was evident from the fact that although students were caught with Bluetooth receiver devices and miniature headphones at 11 am on July 19, the Faridkot Police took nearly 15 hours to register the FIRs. “The very fact that the FIR was registered after such an inordinate delay, despite clear complaints from different examination centre heads, indicates that the government tried its best to bury the case,” he alleged.
Asserting that there was more to the case than met the eye and that only a High Court-monitored investigation or a CBI probe could uncover the truth, Mr. Romana said, “There is also the case of an examination centre where a principal deputed all his relatives on examination duty and even involved DIET students instead of other teachers. This indicates that an organised mafia had leaked the paper and had also made arrangements to ensure that students from whom they had collected crores of rupees were provided pliable invigilators, along with Bluetooth receivers and headphones, so that all questions could be answered correctly.”
Stating that Harjot Bains should resign as Education Minister, the Akali leader said, “You cannot have two sets of standards for the Centre and Punjab.” He also criticised Mr. Bains for attempting to evade responsibility by claiming that the Pharmacy paper did not fall under his department. “Bains should know that the examination was conducted in government schools under his department and that government school staff served as invigilators. Both Bains and Health Minister Balbir Singh should resign immediately,” he added.
Speaking about what he described as the decline in Punjab’s education sector during the AAP government’s tenure, Mr. Romana said, “This phony party talked about revolutionising the education sector. Instead, it has presided over a decline of 2.25 lakh students in Class X in government schools compared with 2018, immediately after the completion of the SAD government’s tenure in the state.”
He further claimed that the dropout in Class XII had similarly increased by 1.20 lakh students compared with 2018. “Moreover, 1,762 government schools have been closed during the last four years, and the number of single-teacher government schools has risen to an unprecedented 2,400. These are the questions Harjot Bains and the AAP should answer instead of resorting to blame games, whataboutery, lies and deception,” Mr. Romana added.