Dear Editor,
With all hopes lost, I write this letter to inform the people in APPSC, the chairman, the members, and the secretary as well as the students protesting on that fateful day that you have broken the hopes and inner strength of many that day.
1) As an aspirant, I went to the exam center designated to me but to my disbelief scores of students stopped me from entering the gate. This, they should not have done. They have no right to push us away. That’s not the way people are persuaded.
2) The police personnel are now behaving as if they have done a great job. That was not the case. When the protestors began to climbed up the gate, none of the other aspirants could approach the entrance in a way that could have been respectful. Even though many of us tried to enter we were booed away. The police personnel were not adequately posted at the venue.
Even those who were posted were busy with their camera phones and standing on the terrace. In between the laathi charge and use of water cannon when did the police expect other aspirants to get in? In this chaotic situation, whenever the police tried to say something the protestors ensured that their voice was louder than the megaphone. My simple question to the police is when you can go shop by shop asking them to close the shutter why not ask other candidates, waiting there, as whether we wanted to go in or not. Not all candidates were standing near the gate where police was having a tussle with the protestors. The police did not do their job properly in this case. Their priority should have been removal of protestors before the exam time so that we could go in. But they spent their time by standing near the gate along with the protestors as if they were standing there for a group photo.
If they could have removed them on time then the other group who were not protestors but were willing to give exam would not have gone to the commission to place our grievances. But alas the commission gate was close for us. From aspiring candidates we were given the tag of “demonstrating candidates”.
One police official asked us “how will the exam ever be conducted if you dont let the commission conduct it properly and very confidently accused us that perhaps we did not do well in the first paper so we are protesting”.
For your kind information, We could not even sit for the first exam because you took more than 3 hours to remove the protestors. So my question to that inspector is when did you do your job properly so that we could write our paper peacefully.
On the second day of exam, even though I could not appear the first day, I went to Kingcup school to drop a friend of mine with whom i tried to go inside the exam hall on the first day.
He managed to get inside somehow by running to the gate; just the right way the commission wanted us to go inside the exam hall.
I on the other hand did not read that particular notice issued by the commission. On the second day, more police personnel were installed at kingcup school in order to sprinkle salt in my fresh wound which left me wandering what if this arrangement was done on the first day itself. While I was dropping my friend, that same officer came up to us and ordered us that those who are not appearing the exam should leave. This should have been his attitude on the first day itself.
All of our dreams and hard work of so many years went down the drain on the 10th of November. This is my story of how from an aspirant i became a complete looser without a fault of mine.
I want to ask the protestors whether by blocking the entry gate they did the right thing or not. Because such action of yours may have ruined the life of many like me.
I want to ask the police did you do your job properly? Did you think the aspirant who were willing to write the exams are sack of potatoes that you would toss around as if you are playing a game of snatching.
To the commission, my question is did you do enough? Whose life was on the line that the exam had to be conducted on that very day? Why did you not seek more protection for us? And my last question is to all those parents who are angry at us, including my own, was this a way to conduct exam? Was I brought up in such a way that I was supposed to step on someone for the sake of giving exam? I think we as a society need to introspect. I hope all of us should have thought in a more logical manner so that no one’s life was ruined.
Yours,
A Sandwiched candidate