In continuance of a bizarre and invasive practice that has turned into an annual horror story for women medical aspirants, students at a National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) Undergraduate (UG) examination centre in Kerala’s Kollam district were forced to remove their bras before entering the exam hall, reportedly over ‘metal hooks’. The incident, which took place at the Mar Thoma Institute of Information Technology, Ayur, on Sunday, July 17, came to light after a student’s parent filed a complaint with the Superintendent of Police, Kollam Rural in this regard.
Gopakumar Sooranad, the student’s father, pointed out in his complaint that the official information bulletin issued by the National Testing Agency (NTA) does not mention any ban on bras with metal hooks. When his daughter refused to remove her innerwear, she was asked not to write the exam, he said. “My daughter had been preparing for this exam for a long time. But she was not even able to write the exam properly. She returned to us crying, distressed. They had compulsorily asked the girl students to remove their innerwears. The children were very uncomfortable. Many of them were crying. If it is the rule, they can check the innerwear during frisking. But why remove them? There are no such rules in the NEET bulletin,” he told TNM.
Besides, the students were asked to dump their innerwears together in a room without even following the COVID-19 protocol, Gopakumar pointed out. Calling this mental torture, he said he filed a police complaint to avoid more children from having to undergo this ordeal.
Meanwhile, authorities of the Mar Thoma Institute of Information Technology told TNM that none of their staff were involved in the frisking process. “There were two agencies assigned by the NTA for frisking and noting the biometric attendance. We have no clue what the rules on this are. It is the agency’s staff who check all this. In some cases, when the children came crying to us, asking permission to wear a shawl, we intervened and allowed them to do so,” an institute official said.
It may be noted that the official information bulletin issued by the NTA in connection with NEET (UG) makes no mention of a ban on bras with metal hooks. According to the bulletin, “light clothes with long sleeves are not permitted. However in case, candidates come in cultural/customary dress at the examination centre, they should report at least an hour before the last reporting time i.e. 12.30 pm, so that there is enough time for proper frisking without any inconvenience to the candidate while maintaining the sanctity of the examination.” The bulletin, however, states that the candidates are not allowed to “any metallic item … in the examination hall/room,” besides which the NEET admit card says “garments with large buttons are not permitted.”
This is far from the first time that such an invasion of privacy in the name of dress code has taken place in Kerala. Five years ago, in May 2017, a candidate had complained of having had to go through a similar, but even more elaborate ordeal at an examination centre in Kannur. The candidate said she had reached the exam centre by 8 am, and was wearing a half-sleeve top and black pants. “At the gate, they told me that dark coloured pants weren't allowed and that I needed to change to be allowed inside the exam hall. As it was a Sunday, most of the shops remained shut. My mother and I had to walk for at least 2 km to find a shop, get a change of clothes and then return to the exam hall,” she had told TNM.
Unfortunately, the nightmare did not end there. Ten minutes before the exam commenced, as she was walking through the metal detector to enter the hall, the detector beeped. “I told them it was my bra strap that had a metal hook on it, but they refused to let me in. They insisted that I remove it. Although I argued with them that the rules do not mention anything about innerwear, they refused to hear my pleas. Then I went to one side of the room, removed my bra and handed it over to my mother who was standing outside the gate. As I entered the exam hall to write the test, I had little confidence left in me,” she said. The candidate’s mother had pointed out at the time that while there were three centres in Kannur, this problem with the dress code arose only at this particular centre.
Just a year later, another 18-year-old aspirant reported a similarly traumatising experience in Palakkad. Though startled when she was suddenly asked to remove her bra, the teenager had found no option but to obey the instruction given to her. Later, in a complaint filed at the Palakkad North Town police station on May 8, 2018, she alleged that a male invigilator at the centre stared at her chest repeatedly during the course of the exam. According to her complaint, she "felt humiliated" by this violation.
Inputs: Lakshmi Priya