Aspiring Indian army candidates asked to strip for exam to prevent cheating

 By 
Sonam Joshi
 on 
Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

On Sunday, around 1,150 young men in the eastern Indian state of Bihar went to take a recruitment exam for soldiers and clerks in the Indian army, but discovered that they had to take off their clothes first.

The candidates appearing for the exam in the city of Muzaffarpur were asked to take off their shirts, trousers and even vests to prevent any possibility of cheating from hidden paper slips. They took the exam in an open ground wearing just their underwear.

Army sources said that the candidates were asked to strip to save time on frisking, while others described as an "administrative lapse."

In the last year, there have been several infamous incidents of Indian students cheating in exams, with the collusion of examiners and parents. Most famously, photographs of parents and friends of students climbing the walls of a multi-storey school building in Bihar to pass answer notes went viral in 2015.

Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The photographs brought the large scale nature of cheating in the state's exams into public limelight. As a result, hundreds of cheating students were expelled and over 900 people arrested. This January, the Bihar government announced a fine of Rs 2,000 ($30) for students found cheating in the school exams.

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