Uttarakhand Technical University has cancelled two engineering examinations after their papers were allegedly leaked, reported The Indian Express on Friday.

The police on Thursday arrested Ashish Kumar Gupta, an assistant professor at the Shivalik College of Engineering, which is affiliated to Veer Madho Singh Bhandari Uttarakhand Technical University, in connection with the leak, according to ANI.

This came in the wake of protests against alleged irregularities in the conduct of competitive exams spreading across the country.

The complaint against Gupta was filed by the examination controller of the university.

Gupta had set the question papers for the Machine Learning for Internet of Things and Electromagnetic Field Theory examinations scheduled for July 7 and July 8.

The university alleged that an internal inquiry found that Kumar shared the questions with students through the institution’s portal and WhatsApp before the examination, reported The Indian Express.

The leak will affect students of 12 institutes affiliated with the university. The re-examinations for both subjects will be held in the third week of August, the newspaper quoted an order by the university as saying.

It added that Kumar has been “debarred with immediate effect from all examination-related work of the university for the next seven years”.

The university’s examination controller also issued a warning to the Shivalik College of Engineering for not maintaining “adequate supervision and institutional control”, reported The Indian Express.

The director of the college, TS Sidhu, told the newspaper that Gupta had been terminated.

Follow updates about the youth protest here.

Youth protest against exam irregularities

The youth protests began on June 6, when the Cockroach Janta Party political campaign started its demonstration at Jantar Mantar to demand the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, alleging that he was responsible for paper leaks in national competitive examinations.

On Sunday, thousands joined the protest in Delhi after the police forcibly shifted activist Sonam Wangchuk, who had been on a hunger strike, to a hospital.

A march to Parliament on Monday was met with heavy police action. Dozens of protesters were injured in baton charges and had to brave tear gas.

The police action widened the support for the agitation, which soon spread to other cities.

In Mumbai, the police detained scores of demonstrators between Tuesday and Wednesday as they held solidarity protests with the Cockroach Janta Party’s agitation in Delhi.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.