3 coaching centres sealed days before recruitment exam, student anxiety simmers in Prayagraj

Twice a day for the last two days, Priya Rajput, a young job aspirant from Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur, and Pankaj Singh from neighbouring Deoria have been making anxious trips to their coaching centre in Prayagraj, hoping to find its gates reopened. Instead, they are met each time by locked doors and official seals pasted across the entrance.

Both are in their 20s and have left their hometowns to prepare for the Uttar Pradesh Police Constable recruitment examination, which is scheduled for June 8-10 and will see nearly 28 lakh aspirants compete for just over 32,000 posts.

With just days to go, every hour of study matters. But the coaching institute where they had enrolled is among three prominent ones sealed by the Prayagraj Development Authority (PDA) on May 31, which claims the buildings were operating without completing mandatory formalities.

The action came days after the owners of the three institutes participated in a candlelight march in Prayagraj on May 29, held by aspirants for competitive examinations. Their demands: release of scorecards for the Uttar Pradesh Police Sub-Inspector examination held on March 14-15, whose results were declared on May 7; cancellation of the Lekhpal recruitment test conducted on May 21 over what they claim are irregularities; and greater transparency in recruitment processes.

The PDA, though, denied any connection between the crackdown and the protest, insisting the action was based solely on compliance-related violations.

For aspirants gathered outside the shuttered centres, though, the timing has raised difficult questions. “The examination is next week, and our study is blocked,” said Pankaj Singh, who is enrolled at Super Climax Coaching, one of the three institutes.

The other two are Target On Coaching and Exampur Coaching, among Prayagraj’s most prominent institutes. All three institutes have been operating for several years from rented premises leased by their owners.

After repeatedly finding the doors locked, Priya Rajput and her classmates travelled to another building operated by Super Climax Coaching, where administrative work was still underway, hoping someone could tell her what happens next.

“My family has dreamed of seeing me become a police constable,” Rajput, who stays on rent in Prayagraj, said. “I have worked hard and stayed away from home to prepare. Days before the exam, we don’t know how to complete our preparation or where we will be able to meet our teachers and get our doubts cleared.”

Many students also linked the sealing action to plans announced by aspirants and coaching operators for a large protest march in Lucknow on June 12 if their demands were not addressed.

Vineet Tiwari, a government job aspirant from Chandauli district who is preparing in Prayagraj, claimed, “We believe the purpose is to discourage participation in the June 12 march.”

Simultaneously, police have booked Pankaj Pandey and Ashutosh Pandey, two prominent figures in the ongoing stir, on charges of breach of peace. Both are currently in judicial custody. However, a senior police official said the action against the two was not linked to the student protest, and that they “have been booked in a separate, unrelated case”.

Pankaj and Ashutosh are co-founders of the Joint Competitive Students’ Hunkar Forum, a platform that emerged recently following a series of demonstrations by government job aspirants over paper leaks and alleged irregularities in recruitment examinations.

A candlelight protest, and what followed

On May 29, Prayagraj saw a candlelight march that started from Manmohan Park and was scheduled to end at Azad Park. But participants alleged that police stopped the procession near the Hindu Hostel. The aspirants regrouped at Azad Park, where they held a public meeting, raised slogans and once again pressed their demands for transparency and accountability.

The protest drew not only students but also owners and teachers of several coaching institutes, including the three centres in question.

“The idea was to register our demands in a peaceful and constructive way,” said Arvind Maurya, 24, an aspirant from Azamgarh district. “Any aggressive protest could have created problems for us. We felt this was the best way to tell the government that students are unhappy and want their concerns to be heard.”

Maurya said the protesters were demanding a fresh examination for Lekhpal recruitment and the publication of detailed scorecards for the Uttar Pradesh Police Sub-Inspector examination so that candidates could verify their performance.

The first demand was linked to reports on social media alleging irregularities at an examination centre in Lucknow. “The examination was supposed to be held from 10 am to noon, but we were told that some candidates came out of the centre in Lucknow around 2 pm,” Maurya claimed. “That naturally raised questions.”

The examination was conducted by the Uttar Pradesh Subordinate Services Selection Commission (UPSSSC). A senior UPSSSC official said it was conducted in accordance with established procedures and security protocols. “The examination was held with complete integrity and all necessary safeguards,” the official said. “Claims of a paper leak are false.”

The official added that the commission had reviewed reports from examination centres and relevant authorities and found no evidence of malpractice or irregularities. Questioning the focus of the agitation, the official noted that large-scale protests had emerged primarily in Prayagraj and not in other parts of the state.

Regarding allegations that candidates at one examination centre in Lucknow left the premises nearly two hours after the test officially ended, the official said the delay was due to routine inquiries by administrative and police teams.

Addressing demands from aspirants for the release of scorecards for the Sub-Inspector recruitment examination, whose results were announced on May 7, a senior official of the Uttar Pradesh Police Recruitment and Promotion Board said the recruitment process has not yet concluded, as candidates must still undergo physical efficiency tests and document verification before the final merit list can be drawn up.

“Until the entire recruitment process is completed and the final results are declared, scorecards cannot be made public,” the official said. “Candidates will be able to view their scores once the recruitment procedure is complete and the final result is announced.”

‘Students and teachers paying the price’

On June 1, a day after the sealing action, when some aspirants gathered at the Circuit House in Prayagraj to meet Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh and voice their concerns, the AAP leader said the meeting was interrupted by the district administration and the police.

“Even in closed rooms, permission to discuss the future of millions of students is denied; the administration has arrived to stop even talk of paper leaks,” he claimed on X.

He also shared a video purportedly featuring Vivek Kumar, the owner of Exampur Coaching.

Kumar told The Indian Express that his immediate concern was not the institute itself but the thousands of students whose preparation has been disrupted. “At the same time, we have a large team of teachers and staff whose livelihoods are linked to the institute. The sealing of the building has created uncertainty for everyone,” he said.

Kumar has been running the centre from rented premises in Prayagraj’s George Town since 2016. He said the institute employs around 250 staff members, including nearly 60 teachers, and caters to about 2,000 students through classroom programmes, as well as thousands more on online learning platforms.

Vinneet Kumar Singh, secretary of the PDA, however, said the three sealed buildings lacked completion certificates required to operate coaching centres, educational institutions and other commercial activities from the premises.

Singh said notices had previously been issued to the property owners, but no response was received. “The buildings did not possess the necessary completion certification required under the rules,” he said.

Another PDA official said the properties were found to be in violation of multiple provisions of the Uttar Pradesh Urban Planning and Development Act, 1973.

Super Climax Coaching, which has operated from rented premises in Prayagraj since 2017 under the leadership of Maroof Ahmed, employs around 80 staff members, including 50 teachers, and caters to thousands of aspirants preparing for competitive examinations.

Ahmed said many of their students have secured positions in the police and other government services. “Our selection record speaks for itself,” he said. “If you visit police stations across the region, you are likely to find officers who once studied with us.”

According to Ahmed, the institute currently teaches around 5,000 students through offline programmes conducted in three shifts, and a much larger audience through online classes.

Target On, the third coaching institute whose premises have been sealed, is located in Prayagraj’s Katra neighbourhood and has been operating from a rented accommodation for the past six years.

Its director, Ravi P Tiwari, said he had participated in the candlelight march because it was “a legal manner to support students’ concerns”.

“Now it is the students, teachers and the institute’s administration who are bearing the consequences,” he said.

Tiwari said Target On has around 3,000 students enrolled in classroom programmes, while its online courses reach many more across states. He said that the closure had disrupted the preparation of thousands of aspirants at a critical point in the examination calendar.

The three institutes are among an estimated 400 spread across Prayagraj, which has long been regarded as one of northern India’s most important hubs for competitive examination preparation, and where thousands arrive every year with dreams of securing a government job. The institutes attract between four lakh and five lakh students annually from across Uttar Pradesh as well as neighbouring Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.

Many of these aspirants come from small towns and villages in eastern and central Uttar Pradesh, often leaving their families for the first time and living in modest rented rooms in neighbourhoods such as Katra and Civil Lines, which have evolved into vibrant education hubs.

“Anyone who gets selected tells you to come to Prayagraj and join a good coaching institute,” said Rohit Aswasthi from Mau district of UP. “People believe this is where serious preparation happens.”