University Chancellor Hoque, criticised by Assam CM, booked for exam malpractices
Police said that Hoque had been arrested in connection with a case registered in the Sribhumi district on Friday
Guwahati: In what has drawn the attention of educational circles, the Assam police arrested Mahbubul Hoque, the owner of the University of Science and Technology, Meghalaya (USTM) — a private educational institution on the outskirts of Guwahati.
Police said that Mr Hoque had been arrested in connection with a case registered in the Sribhumi district on Friday. According to police, a “law and order” situation erupted at the Central Public School in the Patharkandi area of Sribhumi district on Friday during the CBSE class 12 physics examination.
Mr Haque who also runs the first private medical college of northeast has been at the receiving end of several attacks of Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma allegedly for waging a ‘flood jihad’ against Assam by constructing massive campus of the USTM by cutting hills of neighbouring state of Meghalaya. He was arrested by the Assam police on Saturday from his residence in Guwahati.
Mr Hoque was arrested a day after Assam chief minister alleged that USTM is “fraudulent” and that it is issuing “fake certificates and degrees” to students, prompting the university to deny these charges.
After Mr Haque’s arrest Mr Sarma said, “We have been keeping a watch over the activities of some educational mafia in the state. Students from Goalpara, Nagaon and Kamrup districts – more than 200 students with the promise of being given more than 30 marks are taken to Barak’s Patharkandi. When they did not get help, they made a racket and the whole ring came to the surface. And this is not contained to CBSE; it also extends to medical entrance and the whole fraud will come forward. I have said earlier also that this man is a very big fraud, his history is all about fraud… We will keep working so that in Assam, education is not turned into a bazaar.”
ERD Foundation that runs Central Public School Patharkandi, principal secretary Mehjabeen Rahman said, “Essentially, we have been accused of not giving students an opportunity to cheat in examinations.”
She in a statement said, “These were allegations made by a handful of students, and you will find a few students like this everywhere. They did not do as well in their physics exam as they would have hoped and they may have wanted to use unfair means, which the invigilators did not allow. When we first saw the videos, we were taken aback by what they were saying.”
The ERD Foundation was founded by Mr Hoque, a Muslim of Bengali origin from Assam’s Sribhumi district in the Barak Valley. The foundation’s flagship institute is the USTM, of which Mr Hoque is also the Chancellor.
On the allegation that the aggrieved students were not attending classes in Patharkandi, she said, “They are students of the Patharkandi school, and they attended classes there. But during lean periods, we bring them to USTM for specialised coaching, especially when we get expert coaches from Delhi and elsewhere.”
Assam education minister Ranoj Pegu in his reaction on social media said, “"Shocking allegations have surfaced against @ustm_A's unethical practices in education. Students were reportedly assured assistance in the 30-mark MCQ section of their CBSE Class 12 exams at Central Public School, Patharkandi (owned by the USTM group). Many, mostly from Goalpara, were strategically placed there to gain an unfair advantage in exams. When external invigilators refused to comply, chaos ensued-teachers were locked inside, prompting police intervention," he said.
