Assam teenager denied entry to sit for entrance exam for wearing shorts, made to give test wrapped in curtain

A 19-year-old student, in Assam’s Tezpur town, was not allowed to sit for an entrance exam as she was wearing shorts. In order to sit for the test, the teenager was then made to wrap a curtain around her legs. The incident happened on 15 September when a teenager, named Jublee Tamuli, appeared for the entrance test of Jorhat’s Assam Agricultural University (AAU). She made it to Tezpur from her hometown at 10:30 and reached the exam centre, Girijananda Chowdhury Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (GIPS), on time. She was allowed to enter the centre after the routine checking. Tamuli had all the credentials with her including the admit card and the Aadhaar card, however, was asked to stand aside by the invigilator. When she asked for the reason, the teacher said that shorts are not allowed. Talking about the incident, the student told News18, “I questioned why I can’t wear shorts. There are no mentioned norms in the admit card for the code. They said that it’s common sense. I asked the person to speak to my father which he denied. I asked my father to get me full pants. As I needed to sit for my exam urgently and my father was taking time to reach. They gave me a curtain to warp around and write the exams”. The girl’s father said that the market was far off to get full pant on such short notice. It took him half an hour to reach back and the invigilator by then had given Tamuli a curtain to wrap around. He added that it was nothing less than torture ahead of the important exam and they have never faced such humiliation ever. On anonymity, the institution’s authorities said that the exams were conducted by agencies and the institute had no role in the incident. Calling it the “most humiliating experience” of her life, Jublee told The Indian Express, “They did not check for COVID protocols, masks or even temperature…but they checked for shorts”. The girl added that she plans to write to Assam Education Minister Ranoj Pegu about the episode.