Poor class 12 results due to cheating-free exams, will take it as challenge: Nitish

Nitish said he has taken the entire episode of poor class 12 results and the misconduct therein as a challenge.

PATNA: Facing flak on the re-run of 'topper scam' for the second year Class 12 exams in the state, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said strict actions have been taken against those involved in the case. Nitish said he has taken the entire episode of poor class 12 results and the discrepancy therein as a challenge. "Efforts are being made to improve education system in the state. In democracy, people have a rigth to express their opinions in many different ways. We will turn these challenges into opportunities," he told the media. The chief minister said the case of this year's topper Ganesh Kumar cannot be compared with last year's topper scam as no such incident came into light till now. Kumar said that probe into the matter has been going on and those who will be found guilty in connection with this case will be punished. He said poor class 12 results came against the backdrop of stringent measures taken by the government this year to ensure a cheating-fee examination in view of the toppers scam last year. A whopping 64 per cent of students in Bihar have failed in this year's Class 12 examination. A year after Bihar state board Class 12 Arts topper Ruby Rai was arrested, Patna police has nabbed this year's topper in the stream, Ganesh Kumar, on charge of forgery of documents. A Patna police team has also arrested the principal of a Samastipur school and her husband for allegedly helping this year's arrested Intermediate arts topper fudge his age. Residents of the village around 117km east of Patna said the couple's son Gautam, who was employed as clerk in the school, was also taken into custody. The couple's arrest followed the interrogation of Ganesh and his associate Sanjay Kumar in Patna. Ganesh, who took the Intermediate exam this year from RSJN Inter College in Samastipur, was arrested from the capital's Musallahpur locality on Friday evening on the charge of forging his date of birth and changing his name. In 2015, Ganesh, a resident of Giridih in Jharkhand, had mentioned his date of birth as June 2, 1993 in the affidavit submitted to the Sanjay Gandhi High School; he is actually 1975-born. Rosera resident Sanjay Kumar had told the school that he was Ganesh's local guardian. Ganesh and Sanjay came in contact during their stay in Musallahpur, a hub of private coaching institutes, about four years ago, police sources said. Ganesh is learnt to have told interrogators that he had paid Rs 700 to Sanjay for documents required to get admission in the secondary school at Laxminia. Police sources said Sanjay was the kingpin of a forged-certificates racket, and had close links with the notorious "Ranjit Don" of Nalanda. Additional superintendent of police (law and order) Shibli Nomani said raids were still on to nab the accused in the case lodged with the Kotwali police station by the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) against Ganesh and officials of the two Samastipur schools from where Ganesh cleared the matriculation and the Intermediate exams. A police team has also been sent to Giridih to gather more information about Ganesh, who was sent to the Beur Central Jail on Saturday evening. Ganesh is also learnt to have told interrogators that he left Giridih in 2013 after local residents demanded he return their money that he had deposited in a Calcutta-based chit-fund company. Ganesh worked as an employee of the company in which Giridih residents had invested over Rs 15 lakh. The company later shifted out of Giridih, leaving the investors in the lurch.