Medical and Dental Colleges Admission Test
(MDCAT) 2023 has been rescheduled to be held on November 26, 2023, in Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh provinces of Pakistan. The test was previously held on
September 10, 2023, across the country but leakage of question paper in Sindh
and use of unfair means on vast scale including the use of sophisticated
electronic blue tooth devices in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa compelled the respective
governments to cancel the test and get it reconducted. Apart from approaching
other quarters, a handful of candidates moved the Supreme Court too against the
decision of the governments, which according to them, put the legitimate
candidates in another phase of useless fatigue and provides another unnecessary chance
to the failed candidates but the Supreme Court remained unconvinced. Resultantly,
the Dow University of Health Sciences in Sindh and Government of Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa through Khyber Medical University (KMU) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are
striving to conduct a fair and transparent test in their respective provinces.
In Sindh, arrangements are being made as a
matter of routine but in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa an unprecedented and somehow
irrational hype is being witnessed with regard to arrangements for the test. The
Educational Testing and Evaluation Agency (ETEA) which was established back in
1998 with the sole purpose of conducting entrance examinations for admissions
in Medical Colleges and Engineering Universities, and it has conducted the
tests since than for both entrance examinations, has been taken out of the
process. The Government has entrusted KMU to conduct the test this time. However,
reasons of withdrawal of the
test from ETEA has not been announced officially.
Apparently, the primary reason is the assumption that if 219 candidates involved in cheating through a sophisticate Bluetooth device have been caught red-handed, many would have certainly dodged
the arrangements and successfully attempted the paper with the help of unfair
means. This assumption is denied by the ETEA authorities, and they ask for
proofs if any such candidate has been identified by any authority or the Joint
Investigation Team (JIT) constituted by the Home Department subsequent to the
allegations of use of Bluetooth devices on social media. However, no such
evidence has been presented by the Home Department, JIT or any other authority
to the public so far. Many have already questioned that if ETEA is an attached
department of Higher Education Department and Medical Colleges fall under the
jurisdiction of Health Department, how come Home Department intervened in the
matter and Additional Chief Secretary Home not only moved the summary to
constitute the JIT but now he is leading the whole exercise of re-conduct of the
test. The composition of the JIT has also been questioned by the media and the
concerned candidates as well. They were of the view that if the offspring of two
of its members (Additional Secretary Home Department and Deputy Director
Intelligence Bureau) could not score the required marks in the held test and the
JIT is headed by an officer of the Police department which failed to obstruct
the sale-purchase of a forbidden device before the test and block its entry
into the test centers, how the proceedings of the JIT can be impartial. ETEA
authorities claim that Police, district administrations or the concerned Law
Enforcement Agencies did not provide them the required support and they
apprehend the devices solely at their own. However, now the situation has taken
a dramatic turn.
The Additional Chief Secretary of the Home and
Tribal Affairs Department is personally steering the whole process. He is not
only chairing the coordination meetings, but he has also made the whole of the
government machinery involved in the process. Commissioners and Deputy
Commissioners have been assigned the task of managing the test centers. The
Police department and other Law Enforcement Agencies are made responsible for
making foolproof security arrangements in and around the test centers. Upon
direction of the Home Department, concerned district administrations have imposed Section
144 of the Criminal Procedure Code in and around the venues. This section of
law is usually employed to maintain law and order or bar a specific activity taking place in a particular area. It has also been revealed that the Provincial
Government will approach the relevant authorities to suspend the mobile phone
service on the test day. This all is being done just to administer an
examination. Now the Government can possibly take three further steps to make
the arrangements foolproof i.e., declaration of state of emergency which at the
moment has been declared at the Health Department level only, deployment of armed
forces and imposition of curfew in the cities where tests will be held.
In the meanwhile, the Public Service Commission
of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has also declared the recently conducted exam for
recruitment of Sub-Divisional Officers (SDO)/Sub-Engineers in the Communication
and Works Department as null and void on the identical allegations of use of
Bluetooth devices. It would be interesting to see if the Additional Chief
Secretary of the Home Department steps in and take the same measures during the
re-conduct of this exam too because importance of recruitment of SDOs is no less
than the admissions in medical and dental colleges.
Use of unfair means, mobile phones, Bluetooth
devices, impersonation of candidates etc. are not confined to the entrance
tests or recruitment of SDOs only. This menace is spread everywhere. There is
always a hue and cry regarding every possible use of unfair mean in every exam
conducted by the Boards of Intermediate and Secondary Education. The situation
in higher education at universities’ level is also very grim where no external
check exists on their examination system. ETEA and Public Service Commission conduct
tests regularly for even more important positions. Is the intervention of
Additional Chief Secretary Home, suspension of mobile phone service, imposition
of Section 144, bringing in the Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners, involvement of whole of the government machinery etc. to conduct a test, a solution to this problem!!
Of course not. Examinations and tests for
admission and recruitments is a continuous and unending process taking place throughout the year. It is not possible for irrelevant authorities to intervene
every time and try to do a job which they are not meant to do. For some meager
political gains this can happen once in a blue moon but the lasting solution
rest in strengthening the institutions which have been established to do this
job and bolstering the overall testing apparatus. Even more important is to track
down the gangs involved in this business and bring them to justice. It is
interesting to know about the gang which has been found involved in sabotaging
the testing process by use of Bluetooth devices.
Information so far revealed from various
channels has surfaced that the gangs involved in the scam have outshone
the institutional setups of the government by using highly sophisticated
equipment and staying abreast of its weaknesses. Society, on the other
hand, has accepted this curse as a social norm and they do not hesitate to pay
huge amounts to such gangs to get undue advantage for their children.
The main culprit reportedly involved in
Bluetooth scandal both at Public Service Commission and MDCAT has been named as
Mr. Zafar Mahmood, a graduate of University of Engineering and Technology
Peshawar and presently an Assistant Director at Federal Public Service
Commission, Islamabad. According to well placed sources, he along with his
brother, an employee of Rescue Service 1122 and 76 other cronies are in the
Police custody. They are being interrogated for their crimes and their cases
are put in trails at various courts of law.
Mr. Mahmood was first caught by ETEA
authorities during the Engineering Entrance Test in 2017 when he was
impersonating as an invigilator during the test. He was handed over to the Police on the
spot but on the very next weekend he was once again caught by ETEA when he
impersonated as a candidate in MDCAT 2017, documentary evidence of which is available with Police and ETEA authorities. Once again Police took his custody, but he escaped justice. Obviously, it is not a one man job. He must be having a handful of members in his gang.
It would be best known to them that how many
illegitimate candidates made their way to the professional colleges having
unlawful support of this gentleman and how many ingenuine people joined various services in the public sector as the is in the business
since 2016-17. Leakage or smuggling of question papers from the test centers and
providing the solution to the targeted candidates from outside remained their most successful and widely used tactics. Impersonation (appearance of highly
qualified persons in exams for actual candidates) through forged ID cards and other
documents is yet another trick used by the said gang. But to the utter surprise
of many, this time the gang came up with a novel idea of using Bluetooth
devices for cheating purposes. It is astonishing to know that a prohibited
device, which is meant to use in clandestine activities, was imported by the
gang and sold to the candidates on a large scale. Hundreds of parents bought
the device for their children by paying, or at least making commitments of
paying millions of rupees to the gang, so that their children could make their
way to the medical colleges. This large-scale activity, rumors about which were
circulating before the test, went unattended. None of the relevant law
enforcement agencies took notice of it. Of course, not all, but a huge number of candidates were caught in test centers, who pointed fingers to Zafar Mahmood's gang.
This must be a big surprise for the cheater candidates as well as the
masterminds of the scam when the staff of ETEA, without having any technical
tools or expertise, apprehended many of them and ultimately enabled Law Enforcement
Agencies to arrest the members of gang.
Mr. Zafar Mahmood is considered an evil genius among
his cronies. He is referred to as Pablo Escobar (the Columbian drug lord, who
was famous for cheating the systems and running an intercontinental drug cartel
known as Medellín Cartel). Mr. Mahmood followed in the footsteps of Escobar in
another filthy business and ran it successfully for a long time. He has been
ultimately arrested and is now facing trial, but he exposed weaknesses of the
systems run by the government institutions.
It is not possible that every time
the Additional Chief Secretary or the Home department will step in and conduct
the tests by engaging the whole of government machinery. It’s the
responsibility of Law Enforcement Agencies to keep an eye on elements involved in criminal activities as referred above, and
apprehend them before they are successful in executing their nefarious designs.
It’s the responsibility of every testing regime to develop such systems and
apparatus which are difficult to dodge. And It’s the responsibility of society to
expose such elements instead of falling into their traps, else state and state institutions will become
a laughingstock.