Fayaz Bukhari
SRINAGAR, Oct 19: Examinees today went on rampage in SKIMS hospital Soura in the outskirts of Srinagar, breaking the window panes of the territory care hospital and furniture, after there was 2 hours delay in the conduct of entrance examinations for various Bachelors courses.
Over 3, 500 candidates were appearing in Bachelors of Nursing, Medical Laboratory Technology, Medical Technology, Theatre Technology and Radiation Sciences at six centres in the SKIMS hospital campus at Soura in Srinagar today.
Police had to resort to baton charging after students broke window panes and furniture of the SKIMS hospital following delay in the conduct of exams. At least 4 vehicles were also broken by the examinees and several examiners were injured as police charged batons on them.
One of the examiners at Genetic Centre, where from trouble started, said that they were waiting for the question papers till 4 p.m. but they didn’t arrive. He said that the entrance examination was scheduled at 2 p.m. and examinees who had come from across Kashmir valley were waiting till 4 p.m.
“We distributed answer sheets and attendance sheets at 2 p.m. As the question papers didn’t arrive, the examinees came out in protest and went on rampage breaking glass panes and furniture”, said another examiner.
The protesting examinees also broke window panes and furniture of SKIMS Auditorium, Administrative block and Outpatients department creating panic in the hospital.
Director SKIMS, Dr Shoukat Ahmad Zargar, told Excelsior that there was one hours delay in the printing of the question papers as two of the photo copying machines of the SKIMS developed a technical snag.
Zargar said that for last three years the SKIMS is setting up question papers in the morning of the date of examination and prints it same morning. He said that the expert panel arrived in SKIMS at around 7 a.m. and by 11 a.m. the question papers were set up. He said that the printing was started at 11 a.m. and two machines developed technical snag leading to delay in holding of examination.
The Director said that 40,000 pages were to be printed and due to sang there was delay. “I apologize for the delay. It should not have happened but it happened. We are successfully adopting the system of setting up of the question papers in the morning to prevent leakage. Since the number of candidates was huge and there was delay”, he said.
Dr Zargar said that question papers were distributed at around 3 p.m. in Auditorium and Nursing School and they had writing the exams when trouble started in Genetic Centre. He said that trouble was created by some miscreants in who broke the window panes and furniture of Genetic centre and later snatched papers of examinees in other examination Centres.
The director said that the SKIMS will conduct the examination afresh soon. He said that the rented furniture of around Rs 2-3 lakh was damaged besides the hospital furniture.
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