Aspirants protesting against the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission’s decision to conduct the preliminary exams for provincial civil services and revenue officers on separate days claimed that the police lathi-charged them at the UPPSC gate in Allahabad on Monday.

On November 5, the UPPSC had announced that it would hold the preliminary examination for review officer and assistant review officer (RO/ARO) in three shifts on December 22 and 23 and for the provincial civil service in two shifts on December 7 and 8, drawing severe criticism from the aspirants.

Alleging that the state government was deliberately leaving loopholes in the competitive exams to benefit job racketeers and those involved in paper leaks, the aspirants have been demanding that the exams be held on one day.

They are also opposed to the normalisation of marks and believe that it is unfair to talented students.

On Monday morning, over 10,000 aspirants had gathered at the UPPSC gate and decided to stage a sit-in and launch an indefinite strike if their demands were ignored.

“We were informed by a UPPSC officer at 10.30am that they wouldn’t change their mind and the examination would be held in accordance with their previous schedule. They also decided to call a meeting of district-level officers on November 21 to discuss how they could successfully organise the examination,” Sanjay Singh, a student, told reporters.

“There were about 5,000 police and paramilitary personnel and they together attacked us. We have admitted at least 12 injured students to different hospitals,” he claimed, showing an injury mark on his right arm.

Sanjay said the protesters were carrying the national flag and posters of Bhagat Singh, which were torn bythe cops.

“Mild force was used to disperse the students. There is peace now,” a police officer told reporters without revealing his identity.

Riya Gupta, a student, said: “There are five lakh examinees for the PCS and 11 lakh for RO/ARO. The UPPSC can easily make sitting arrangements for five lakh PCS examinees across the state on one day instead of preparing two sets of papers for two different days. The same can be done for the RO/ARO exam. We believe that the government wants to help the corrupt.”

Gupta said they too didn’t approve of the normalisation process where the candidates don’t get to know theiractual marks. “They give us our marks after normalisation, which is an average percentile calculated according to the number of candidates,” she said.