Govt’s cash reward offer fails to find lead to stop SSC question leaks

The government’s offer of Tk 500,000 cash reward for information leading to the arrest of question paper leaker has apparently not worked as scammers continued to boast and 'advertise' about leaks on Facebook.

Many groups on the social media network boast newspaper reports naming them as providers of leaked question papers in an effort to prove their credibility as leakers.

English Paper 1 questions were leaked before the test on Monday close on the heels of the leaks of questions of the two Bangla papers earlier.

Now, they are bragging that the question of English Paper 2 would be available on Facebook before Wednesday's exam.

The English Paper 1 questions appeared on a closed group at 6:23am on Monday, three and a half hours before the exam started. The questions matched exactly with the original ones used in the test.

bdnews24.com accessed the group and saw the post containing the image of the leaked question paper after being added to the group, ‘PSC JSC SSC HSC Real Question Out All Board 100% Common’, when the exam ended.

As Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid announced the rewards and formed committees to look into the allegations of leaks in the first two SSC exams on Sunday, the Facebook groups and pages spreading the leaked papers took extra caution.

However, the availability of the leaked paper of the English Paper 1 was less than the two previous exams.

Dhaka education board Exam Controller Tapan Kumar Sarker told bdnews24.com the committee formed by the ministry was observing the situation along with the board.

“We are working on information provided by you and the other media,” he said.

Administrators of some groups of Facebook and Messenger apologised to the candidates after failing to provide the leaked question papers.

An account titled ‘Muntasir Rahman Maruf’ wrote in a post on a group, ‘SSC Question Out’, “#Question paper hasn’t leaked today. The media creates a hullabaloo, and the minister gets angry whenever a question paper is leaked. We have done this (refrained from posting leaked question paper) to silence them.”     

“Sorry! We’ve narrowly missed the leaked question paper. It happens every year – one English paper is leaked while the other is not. We are sorry for breaking the promise,” an administrator of ‘SSC English 1 2018’ group posted.

As the English Paper 1 exam was under way, many Facebook groups and pages started posting announcements promising leak of the test questions.

Some of them were asking for little amounts of money while the others said they will provide the question papers for free.

These groups and pages include ‘SSC exam question out 2018’, ‘PSC JSC SSC HSC All Exam 100% Common Suggestion & Out Questions’, 'PSC JSC SSC HSC Real Question Out All Board 100% Common', ‘PSC_JSC_SSC_HSC_Degree out question bank.(R)’, and ‘P,s,c j,s,c. s,s,c. Hsc All Question..’.

A user, ‘Rishad Ahamed’, asked those looking for leaked question paper to join another group going by the name ‘SSC Question OuT 100% Common All Board & Rezult Change 2018+19+20 All BD’.

bdnews24.com in an earlier report named the group as one of the leakers.

The ‘SSC Exam question 2018’ group uploaded a post with an image of a newspaper report containing its name.

“I’ve leaked question paper again. Check the paper. My number is also here. I’ll provide #English_1st_paper now for Tk 2,000 in advance,” the post reads.