Proxying in Exam ~ unheralded 19 year old used electronics to defeat Pravin Thipsay !!!

Today’s Times of India reports that 3 men from Bihar, who wrote a recruitment examination for Heavy Vehicles Factory at Avadi in March, were arrested  on charges of impersonation. They were caught after officials found that their fingerprints did not match with the fingerprints submitted along with their answer papers during the examination.

The exam was held on March 1 when nearly 28,000 people from across the state wrote it. On Saturday , the shortlisted candidates were asked to submit their certificates for verification. The officials verified the fingerprints of each candidate and sent them to the next room.   The accused, identified as Prahalad Kumar, Chandan Kumar and Sanjithsingh Yadav , were standing in the same queue one behind the other and officials found that their fingerprints did not match with the prints recorded in biometric devices on March 1.  “Initially the officials believed that the device had some problem but their suspicions were aroused when the fingerprints of the fourth candidate matched,“ said an investigating officer. The three men were later handed over by HVF officials to the Avadi police who registered a case and charged them with impersonation. Preliminary investigations revealed that the three men might have sent some others familiar with the pattern of the examination to write and clear it for them.

Impersonation is perhaps not new – even in olden days, proxies used to write especially for those who failed and were reappearing – but this system of ‘fingerprints’ is effective tool in identifying as the report concludes that on Saturday, as many as 279 candidates were scheduled to be verified. After the officials handed over the three to police, they found that more than 50 candidates had not turned up for the verification !!!!

Crazy Mohan writing for Kamal !!

The Kamal Prabhu Prakashraj starrer Vasool Raja MBBS was a hilarious comedy.   Rajaraman, a small time don gains admission in Medical college by forcing Dr Margabandhu [Crazy Mohan] to impersonate and write exam his behalf. [98.3 ….. and How do I know Sir !! – were big hits] … then when a tough internal exam is set, Kamal writes the exam with the help of Crazy Mohan through  Bluetooth !   In Sankar’s Robot – Enthiran with the storyline of Sujatha,  Chitti helps Sana [Aishwarya Rai] first by voice and then by emitting the visual images of books reflected near her. 

Read about a somewhat similar – more interesting ‘cheating’ as reported in Mumbai Mirror.  Praveen Mahadeo Thipsay  is a  Grandmaster.  He first won the  Indian Chess Championship in 1982, and repeated it many a times.  He represented the Nation in many Chess Olympiads too.   In 1997 he became the second Indian to attain a GM norm after Anand.  He is married to the Woman International Master Bhagyashree Sathe Thipsay.

In the fifth round of the inaugural Dr Hegdewar Open Chess Tournament in Delhi, Thipay, 55, was up against an unheralded 19-year-old engineer from Haryana, Dhruv Kakar. The boy played with astonishing assurance and celerity.  Moves that would take the Grandmaster 30 minutes, he was making in under five.

But even as he was stunned by his opponent's furious moves and handed a comprehensive defeat in 87 moves, there was something about his body language that caused Thipsay some disquiet. Unlike the usual Zen-like stoicism of most chess players (unless they are Kasparov of course), his young opponent was exceptionally fidgety and kept up a constant tattoo of his feet. Sure that there was something amiss, Thipsay complained to the authorities who then conducted a body search on Kakar and found him strapped with several mobile phones all over his body and an earphone in his ear so tiny that it had to be pulled out with a magnet.   The 19-year-old Dhruv Kakar  had used electronic devices, including a mobile phone strapped to his leg, and a minuscule earphone  to overpower Pravin Thipsay.

Thipsay had not been wrong in wondering in the course of the game whether he was up against man or machine for indeed he was playing not just Kakar but also a computer which Kakar's friend was operating back in Haryana.  "Some of his moves were out of the world," said Thipsay speaking to us from Delhi. So this how Kakar's modus operandi went: Once Thipsay would play his move, it would be relayed to Kakar's friend sitting in front of a computer in Haryana through a series of foot taps which he could hear because of the mobile phone surreptitiously strapped just above Kakar's ankle. "The friend would state a move aloud and Kakar would tap with his foot once if he was wrong and twice for affirmative," says Thipsay who had been bothered through the game by the foot-stamping. The friend would then feed moves into the computer which would throw up the next move relayed to Kakar which he could hear because of the tiny earphone in his ear.

"How I wish that he was indeed the player he appeared to be and not a cheat. "I could well be older than his father and he is certainly younger than my son. It hurt me that a talented boy like him resorted to such mischievous tactics," says Thipsay, a Khar resident. Kakar was eventually banned from the tournament.  The organisers then called the friend who was helping Kakar and let off with a warning. He and Kakar were spared further ignominy since Thipsay and the organisers chose not to press criminal charges. However, a complaint was filed with the All-India Chess Federation (AICF) which promised strict action. "

As for Thipsay, he won a lost match and ended up winning the tournament, his first in four years.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

4^th May 2015