Acting on a tip-off, the SSLC flying squad caught students indulging in mass copying at the Maruthi High School in Rajghatta, Doddaballapur, on Thursday and apprehended a headmaster and two teachers for helping them cheat.
The squad, headed by Doddaballapur tahsildar Chandru, swung into action after complaints were received from several students and teachers about mass copying at the centre.
Arriving at the school at 11 am squad members saw students hurriedly trying to dispose of papers with answers scribbled on them and even found some answers written on the blackboard in one classroom. A brief inquiry later they learnt that the headmaster of Manjunatha High School in the area, Mr Chandrashekar and two teachers, had distributed the slips of paper with answers on them to the students.
The police were informed and the three were taken into custody for further questioning. Rivzalry between schools is said to have sparked off the mass copying.
The headmaster of Manjunatha school, which was losing out to the Maruthi High School and other institutions in the locality owing to its lack of infrastructure and poor SSLC results, was allegedly the mastermind.
“Mr Chandrashekhar himself forced a few students to write to the deputy commissioner and other district officials saying mass copying was being carried out at the exam centre to tarnish the image of Maruthi school and other institutions in the area,” claimed a senior officer of the department of public instruction, Mr Venkatesh.
He had not reckoned with the plan backfiring on him, however.