KUALA LUMPUR: THE probe into the leakage of the Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) Science and English papers will be wrapped up this week and more arrests are expected to be made.
Police, however, confirmed that the Malaysian Examination Board (MEB) had lodged more reports yesterday claiming that the Tamil and Mathematics papers had also been leaked.
Kuala Lumpur police chief Datuk Tajudin Md Isa said a fresh probe would be launched by the same team tasked with investigating the first leak.
Police sources yesterday said investigations into the leaks of the Science and English papers had turned up copies of the Tamil and Mathematics papers as well.
Investigators then contacted a senior official with the Education Department and asked the official to bring along the actual test papers to the Putrajaya police headquarters to do a comparison with the copies that the task force had obtained.
The sources said the comparisons showed that the papers obtained by the task force were the same as those that had been given to UPSR candidates in the recent examination.
While the tests of the Science and English papers had been postponed to Sept 30, the Education Ministry has yet to announce whether students will also have to resit the Tamil and Mathematics papers.
As of Saturday, police have arrested 14 people and recorded statements from 30 individuals.
Kuala Lumpur Criminal Investigation Department chief Senior Assistant Commissioner Gan Kong Meng said among the 30 individuals were 19 teachers, eight MEB officers, an officer from a ministry, a journalist and an engineer.
“We are in the midst of preparing reports and will make more arrests.”
He said the investigation papers would be forwarded to the Attorney-General’s Chambers to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to charge those detained under Section 8 (1) of the Official Secrets Act 1972 for possession of official secrets and communicating such information to others.
Gan said of the 14 people arrested, 11 were released on police bail after their statements were recorded.
The leak, which triggered
outrage from parents, forced 473,175 pupils from 8,384 schools nationwide to resit both papers on Sept 30. Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who is also education minister, had issued an apology to the pupils and their parents over the matter.
Last Friday, he announced that MEB director Dr Na’imah Ishak and deputy director (operations) Dr Wan Ilias Wan Salleh were suspended.
Meanwhile, MIC deputy president Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam said the arrest of 10 Tamil school teachers over the leak should not be seen as being race-related.
“I raised the issue in the cabinet before Hindraf (Hindu Rights Action Force) brought it up. The education minister said the investigations were handed over to the police and his ministry was not involved in it directly.
“Therefore, the issue of race does not exist,” he said, adding that he was initially surprised to see that most of the teachers arrested were from Tamil schools. However, he said, the leak involved national schools and Chinese schools’ papers, too.
Subramaniam said MIC would not defend the teachers just because they were Indians.
He said police should intensify their investigation to identify the source of the leak.
“Weakness in the system is what created this whole issue. This is not the first time. It is high time we take a look at the system and fix its weaknesses.” Additional reporting by Lavanya Lingan and Hariz Mohd