144 aspirants paid to get NEET-UG paper: CBI

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has identified 144 candidates who had allegedly paid to get National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) leaked and solved papers hours before they were to take the examination for admissions in medical colleges, officials said on Monday.

In its third charge sheet filed last week, the CBI has named Pankaj Kumar who stole the papers from Oasis school in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand in collusion with its Principal Ahsanul Haque and Vice-Principal Md Imtiyaz Alam, they said.

The crime was allegedly committed once trunks carrying the paper reached the school from the bank vault after 8 am on May 5, the day of the examination, they said.

Haque was the city coordinator for Hazaribagh and Alam was designated the centre superintendent by the National Testing Agency for conducting the NEET UG-2024 examination.

The charge sheet with over 5,500 pages carrying findings on the basis of 298 witnesses, 290 documents and 45 material objects gives a detailed modus operandi of the gang that had leaked the paper.

Haque and Alam allegedly allowed Kumar, a civil engineer of the 2017 batch of the National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur, to enter the room where the trunks were kept, they said.

Once inside, Kumar tampered with the hinges of the trunk containing the question papers, removed one question paper and photographed all its pages. He put back the paper and resealed the trunk before exiting the control room, the CBI alleged.

"Pankaj used a sophisticated tool kit to open and seal the trunk. This tool kit was seized by CBI from the residence of Pankaj Kumar.

"After leaving the school premises, he handed over the photos of the Q-paper to his accomplice Surendra Kumar Sharma who was at the Raj Guest House, Hazaribagh," the CBI Spokesperson said in a statement.

Nine medical students  -- Karan Jain, Kumar Shanu, Rahul Anand, Chandan Singh, Surbhi Kumari, Deependra Sharma, Raunak Raj, Sandeep Kumar, and Amit Kumar -- solved these question papers at the Guest House in Hazaribagh.

These solved papers were allegedly scanned and electronically sent to different locations where gangs received them, printed them and handed them to the aspirants who had paid huge amounts to get access to the leaked and solved papers hours before the examination was set to begin.

"Only those candidates who paid money in advance were allowed to enter these locations. The candidates were subsequently allowed to leave for their examination centres after 12:15 PM, but were prohibited from carrying the printed copies with them," the spokesperson said.

The solved question papers were later burnt by gang members once the candidates had left the clandestine locations.

The candidates were frisked before leaving and had not been allowed to carry their mobile phones to these locations, the CBI has alleged.

One piece of a half-burnt paper was recovered in one such hostel in Patna where these aspirants were staying. The serial number led the agency to Oasis School which uncovered the entire conspiracy.

"The CBI has also identified 144 candidates present in these locations who were beneficiaries of this paper leak and necessary legal action is being initiated against them; 21 mobile phones used by the main accused in this case have also been recovered from various water bodies with the help of the divers by the CBI," the agency said.

The central probe agency has arrested 49 accused including the key conspirators and the solvers and 40 of them have been charge-sheeted in three reports submitted by the agency so far.   -- PTI