Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin wants the police to get to the bottom of leaks in this year's Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) examination papers so that the culprits could be brought to justice.

"We hope the police will take firm action and bring to book the culprits who must be severely punished," he told a press conference here Thursday.

Muhyiddin, who is also Education Minister, said the leaks could also have been purposely done to sabotage him personally and the Education Ministry.

He said he was not making any assumptions as to who might have done it but wanted the police not to rule out this angle.

Muhyiddin, who is here to attend the 8th Asean Education Ministers Meeting, was visibly upset about the latest leaks in the UPSR Bahasa Inggeris 014/1 and 014/2 papers today following the detection of leaks in the Science 018, 028 and 038 papers yesterday.

The Examinations Syndicate has announced pupils would have to resit all the leaked papers on Sept 30.

Muhyiddin also said an independent committee comprising examination experts would be set up soon to manage public examinations to ensure their integrity and confidentiality of examination papers were no longer compromised.

He said that he was extremely dissapointed that such leakage happened more so when he had reminded the parties responsible for the examination to observe all regulations and procedures to prevent such a thing from happening.

This had not only called into question the integrity of the ministry but also make it look like as though it did not know how to handle examinations, he said.

"Those who did this (causing the leaks) should know the UPSR is to test the competency of our children and the consequences of their action.

"I can understand the feelings of the parents and the pupils themselves who will not have to resit the papers," he added.

The deputy prime minister said he did not want to assume officers of the Examinations Syndicate were involved but wanted police to go after the mastermind involved in leaking the papers on social media.

He said the independent committee could also help the police in the task.

As the minister responsible, he said he wished to apologise once again (after having apologised over the leak in the science papers) to the parents and pupils over the stress they have to go through, first before the start and during the examination and now with the leaked papers needing a resit.

He added that he would be holding a meeting with the Examinations Syndicate as soon as possible to discuss ways to improve confidentiality of examination papers right from the time they were prepared until they were handed out to the pupils during examination days.