Thamanna Sadique, Pune
On Tuesday 16th, 2 more of the accused of the NEET exam paper leak were arrested by the CBI from Patna and Jamshedpur.
With this arrest, the total count of people who got arrested in the case has become 14. The crime branch of investigation arrested the key accused Pankaj Kumar from Patna and Raju Singh from Hazaribagh. The accused Pankaj Kumar, allegedly stole the exam sheets from the trunk of the National Testing Agency in Hazaribagh. The other accused Raju Singh is said to have helped him in the theft and passed it on to the members of the gang. Six FIRs have been registered so far.
On May 5th, 2024, the NEET-UG exam was conducted. NEET-UG is an exam conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) for admission into courses such as MBBS, BDS, etc, in private as well as government universities. The exam was conducted across 4750 centers in 571 cities.
The Economic Offences Unit handed over the case to the Crime Branch of Investigation. Before the handover of the case to CBI, the Patna police had arrested 13 people. The CBI created improvements in the case by arresting one of the key accused Rakash Rajan also known as Rocky, who was a resident of Bihar. The CBI special court granted the agency 10 days of custody for the questioning. Rakash was one of the trusted members of the accused gang. He is said to be the one who arranged people for solving the paper, after the leak.
Earlier, the principal and vice principal of Oasis School, along with a local newspaper journalist were arrested in the case. Following the latest arrest of the 2 main accused, further investigation was made by the agency. Two teachers of the institution, the employees
of Blue Dart Courier Service, were interrogated along with the e-rikshaw driver who delivered the papers and the officials of the SBI branch where the papers were held prior to the exam.
Out of the six FIRs registered, the FIR from Bihar says regarding the leak of the exam paper, while the remaining states like Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra are pertaining to impersonation of candidates and cheating.