WHEN students are demanding fresh admission test to medical and dental colleges throughout the country with credible evidence that the admission test held last month was based on widely circulated leaked questions and its results are not acceptable, the government has opened the admission process ignoring their demands. We believe that the government should stop the hastily run admission process to find a reasonable solution to the students’ demands instead of using ruthless police power to stop their movement. It is a serious matter and there is hardly any chance that the government can disown its accountability for failing to hold a free and fair admission test.Students passed the 14th day yesterday taking to the streets demanding a fresh admission test to select eligible candidates making clear that they would not accept results of the highly flawed medical admission test. They are gathering at Shaheed Minar and Shahbagh in the city center every day and police are battoning them to the discomfort of viewers on TV screen. Available information shows a total of 82,964 students appeared in the test in which 48.448 were declared successful. As it appears that the government is totally defiant to the students’ demands although it is not in a position to deny it either that question papers were not leaked and the admission test was not fraught with gross irregularities. It seems that it is not ready to expose the failure that it is not capable to hold any public exam without question paper leaking. But the arrest of three persons by RAB including an official of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and recovery of the leaked question papers from his office undoubtedly proved that the question papers were leaked. Law enforcers also arrested eight persons including three physicians from Rangpur for their alleged connection with medical question paper leakage; which were available in social network in the evening prior to the day of admission test. So people believe that the students’ demand for fresh admission test is quite justified. The government should cancel the earlier results to hold a fresh admission test to end the crisis. There is no doubt that the government is very powerful and none but the government can take the right decision to make the admission test acceptable to all. Protesting students are already planning to gather in the capital from the districts to make their case heard. Many socio-political organizations have also voiced support to their cause; many guardians are taking to the street to give moral support to the demands of their wards. To them it is hard to accept that a medical admission test would be robbed off by way of question leakage in which many meritorious students would fall back to poor students. The state can’t discriminate. It is also dangerous because they would make poor physicians to endanger patients’ life.
