Red-faced officials of a panel in Jammu and Kashmir that issued an admit card to a cow for an entrance test to a professional course said on Sunday they would file a formal complaint to the police to trace the prankster behind the incident.
 
The Jammu and Kashmir Board of Professional Entrance Examinations became the butt of jokes when it emerged that it had issued an admit card to “Kachir Gaw” (brown cow in the Kashmiri language) for a test on May 10 to select candidates for a polytechnic diploma course. The card said the applicant was the daughter of Gur Dand (bull).
 
By Sunday afternoon, embarrassed officials of the board had traced the internet protocol (IP) address of the person who submitted the application on behalf of the cow.

"This person has the turned the respectable institution of Board of Professional Entrance Examinations into a laughing stock. We have traced the IP address, which apparently is from south Kashmir's Anantnag district,” Farooq Ahmad Mir, the controller of examinations of the board, told Hindustan Times.
 
“It will be followed up by a formal FIR in the next two days since Monday is a holiday," Mir said.
 
The lapse became public when Junaid Azeem Mattu, a spokesman for the opposition National Conference, tweeted images of the admit card, complete with a photo of a brown cow. The board soon became the subject of a series of tweets poking fun at it.
 
Mir told the media that the admit cards were issued through an automated process. Though the process included image recognition software, it could not differentiate between a human’s face and an animal’s picture, he said.
 
"We want strict action against the person. Tomorrow, someone can play bigger mischief and hack our website. We have to create an example. We cannot afford to let him go without punishment. We are receiving mails and SMSs from people asking for action. We want people's faith in the institution to remain intact," Mir said.
 
Mir, the board’s chairman and the law secretary worked through Sunday to address the issue. Education minister Nayeem Akhtar sought an explanation from the board.
 
"Tomorrow we will conduct examinations for medical and other professional courses. We will be lynched if we don't establish our credentials as competent gatekeepers to hold such examinations," said Mir.
 
The National Conference sought an explanation on the lapse from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party.
 
Mattu said in a series of tweets: “The J&K Board of Professional Entrance Examinations issued this roll-number slip to a cow after due verification…I have both the Provisional Confirmation Page for the applicant Ms. Kachir Gaw as well as details of the payment she made to BOPEE.”
 
Former chief minister Omar Abdullah, also the working president of the National Conference, tweeted: “Brilliant. I wish Kachir Gaaw had turned up for the examination.”
 
The board was asked to take the record for Kachir Gaw down from its website, sources said.
 
However, netizens asked the authorities to treat the matter as a prank and to make their computer systems more foolproof.

- Manohar