Hundreds of young men yesterday in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur, took their army recruitment exam, stripping to underwear.

About 1100 candidates who reached the examination hall to write an exam for the clerk post in army, were asked to take off their clothes, including the vest.

When asked about the reason behind doing this, the army sources said, to save the time on frisking so many people.   

Army Regional office director Colonel VS Godhara said, “We conduct thorough frisking and ensure that candidates carry minimum external things to the exam centre.”

For the several notorious cheating activities performed earlier in the examination halls of Bihar, the officials felt that, the initiative like this would bring out the fair candidates out, who can give their original performance.

Though a few of the students complained that they had cold, they had no other choice, other than following the examiner instructions and sit cross legged on the ground in their briefs, using thighs as tables for the one hour test.

The strict and weird rules like these came into force, after the photo of mass cheating of 10th class students in Bihar exam, went viral worldwide. The photo showed the parents, relatives and friends of the candidates scaling the exam centre walls and passing scraps of papers to students, and shockingly, none were restricted.     

Keeping that in mind, last month, Bihar announced a Rs. 20,000 fine for students caught cheating and jail for relatives caught helping them. Not stopping there, the state,  even ordered CCTV cameras in every classroom and a live stream in few notorious exam centres.
 
By Phani Ch