KARACHI, May 21: Only one case of impersonation has yet been reported during the ongoing HSC annual examinations, said examination officials at the Board of Intermediate Education, Karachi.

Giving details of cases of unfair means (UFM) as reported on May 20, an official of the board said that in all, four cases were reported from three separate colleges, which included a case of impersonation detected during the afternoon session.

The official said that a person was caught impersonating a candidate at the Nabi Bagh Government College by the centre's staff and was not allowed to attempt the paper further, while a case in this regard had been received from the centre for action as per rules.

To a question, the official said that the board was in a position to take action against the candidate on whose behalf a paper was being attempted by someone else, once that any details of unfair means was submitted to the board from the concerned examination centre.

Three students were caught using unfair means including one each at the Jamia Millia College of Education, Government College for Men, Nazimabad, and College of Emerging Technologies on Thursday.

In the meantime, sources in the educational circles claimed that cases of unfair means, including impersonations, which were high, were not being detected or reported to the board as the concerned centre staff failed to gather courage for any action against the defaulters - a number of which were patronised by influential or politically motivated groups.

A teacher said that as per rules impersonators were required to be handed over to the police, but that was mostly avoided for reasons best known to the examination staff. In the meantime, three more cases of unfair means were reported in the afternoon shift on Friday taking the total number to over 50.