NEET paper leak: Bihar Police agency arrests members of "solver gang"

Patna: After handing over the NEET-UG irregularities case in Bihar to CBI, Bihar Police's Economic Offences Unit (EOU) said that they have arrested five members of a "solver gang" involved in the case. One of them had received a PDF file of the solved question paper of the exam on his phone a day before the exam, The Indian Express (TIE) reported.

The gang member with the solved paper was identified as Baldev Kumar, alias Chintu. He is among five people EOU arrested from Jharkhand on Sunday. They were produced before a Patna court and were sent to judicial custody. However, EOU said that the kingpin of the "solver gang", Sanjeev Kumar, is still at large.

While Baldev is a resident of Bihar Sharif in Nalanda, the other arrested four were identified as Mukesh Kumar, a resident of Agamkuan in Patna; Panku Kumar from Chhabilapur, Nalanda; Rajeev Kumar alias Karu, a resident of Ekangarsarai, Nalanda; and Paramjit Singh alias Bittu, from of Chhabilalpur, Nalanda, TIE reports.

EOU narrowed their probe to the five arrestees on the basis of intelligence inputs and technical investigation, the Bihar Police agency said in a statement. The agency found partially burnt papers from Learn Boys Hostel and Play School at Nandlal Chapra of Ramakrishna Nagar police station area of Patna. Samples were sent to a forensic laboratory, the agency said.

After receiving solved papers as PDFs, copies of the same were made through a Wi-Fi printer kept in the school and groups of candidates were made to memorise them, EOU said.

A taxi was used to transport candidates from and to the school and a drop-off point two 2kms away. Along with the arrests, the taxi was also seized.

EOU further said that it procured the roll code details of 15 suspicious candidates from NTA, and four out of them were questioned, while the remaining candidates have yet to appear for questioning. NTA has provided the reference question paper related to the semi-burnt question paper found at the school, EOU said in the statement.

TIE quoted EOU, "After receiving the desired report related to the Serial Code of the half-burned question paper seized from N.T.On the evening of 20 June 2024, it became clear that the half-burned question paper was recovered from Learn Boys Hostel and Play School, Ramakrishna Nagar, for the NEET UG-2024 examination. The serial code is of the examination centre of Oasis School Kallu Chowk, Mandai Road of District Hazaribagh, Jharkhand. This has been verified. In the course of verification, prima facie, the polybag suspected of packing the question paper from the concerned examination centre of Hazaribagh, the packing of the original question paper recovered from the concerned candidate and the preliminary investigation in the related packing trunk, all these have been found to be tampered with, and all these Suspicious exhibits have been duly confiscated."

Further, it said that Baldev and others were provided with duplicate SIMs and stary arrangements.

Before EOU took over the case from Patna Police on May 17, they had arrested 13 people over the alleged paper leak.