Guwahati, Sep 15 (IANS): Internet will remain suspended across the state on Sunday as more than 11 lakh applicants in Assam are set to appear for government recruitment examination, officials said.

In 2,305 centres spread across Assam, a total of 11,23,204 candidates will take the examinations for class III level government posts.

The decision was taken by the administration to check the use of illegal means in the examination.

An official said: “To ensure that there remain no loopholes in the examination process which might have the potential to create doubt in the public mind on the fairness of the recruitment process, the government has taken necessary steps to temporarily disable the Mobile internet/Mobile data/Mobile/Wi-Fi connectivity on 15th September 2024 from 10.00 A.M. to 1.30 P.M.”

The official added that despite the state government taking the necessary steps to conduct a free and fair examination, it was observed on many such earlier occasions that some unscrupulous elements resorted to unfair means using different mobile applications such as Facebook, WhatsApp, X, Telegram and YouTube etc which are based on internet/Wi-Fi connectivity.

The official said that there exists a substantial apprehension that the anti-social elements or the organised groups shall try to take advantage of the situation by resorting to rumour-mongering through social media and may try to destabilise the process of examination.

“Some even may try to sell fake question papers using different social media platforms,” he said.

The state administration has appealed to the general public not to believe in such anti-social news and not to fall prey to such fake news.

Notably, the Board of Secondary Education, Assam (SEBA) will conduct the examinations.