KATHMANDU, April 19 (AFP) - Nepalese university students awaiting results of end-of-year exams may be kept in suspense for a while longer after it emerged that many of their papers had been eaten by rats.

Hundreds of unmarked exam papers from Kathmandu's Tribhuvan University were handed to a local police station to be kept under lock and key, but were inadvertently placed in a store room infested with rats, a police official told AFP.

"The exams were two and half months ago. We kept the answer papers in a secure room. But a few days ago we discovered that some of them had been eaten by rats," said police inspector Ram Prakash Chaudhary.

"We told the university officials about the problem straight away. But they only came to pick up the papers today, after the news came out."

The Rising Nepal newspaper said the papers had been stored in an old building with a leaking water pipe, and accused Tribhuvan -- the country's oldest and biggest university -- of "utter negligence".

No one at the university could be reached for comment.