NEET: leak indeed happened at Jharkhand school, says CBI

Ranchi: In the case of the NEET-UG paper leak in Bihar, the CBI confirmed on Tuesday that the alleged paper leak had indeed occurred in Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh. This is the first time the central agency has officially admitted the allegation after it took over the case last month. It told the Supreme Court on the day that the leak occurred at Hazaribagh’s Oasis School was on May 5, The Indian Express reported.

CBI further confirmed that the paper was solved in the same school.

So far, the principal of Oasis School, Ehsanul Haque and the centre superintendent, Imtiyaz Alam, are under the central agency’s custody in relation to the case. However, both have denied any wrongdoings.

CBI has told the court they have evidence that the mentioned two took money in lieu of the leak, and it had recovered post-dated cheques, adding that the money was not given in one tranche.

Their modus operandi was that one of the alleged kingpins entered the strongroom of the school on the morning of the exam with a toolkit to access the papers. The person photographed the papers and sent them to the ‘Solver Gang’ in Hazaribagh to have it solved by a set of medical students.

CBI said that they have CCTV footage showing that the prime accused, Pankaj Kumar alias Aditya, has accessed the strongroom. The front door was locked in front of everybody, and the key was with the centre superintendent, but the officer deliberately kept the inside bolt of the rear door open. The city coordinator was also involved in this.

“Pankaj Kumar enters the campus at 7.12 am and sits in the staff room adjacent to the strong room. So, at 7.53 am, the front door of the string room was locked… from the rear door at 8.02 am, this man entered from behind and left at 9.23 am,” TIE quoted CBI.

Pankaj sent the photos to another accused to get them solved. Printouts of the papers were taken and solved. After that, the hard copy is scanned and sent to one more location in Hazaribagh and two locations in Patna.