A man who stole NEET-UG paper from the trunk of the National Testing Agency in Bihar's Hazaribagh before it was allegedly leaked and his associate were arrested by the CBI today, sources said. Pankaj Kumar, who stole the paper, was arrested from Patna while Raju Singh was nabbed from Jamshedpur.
Mr. Kumar, also known as Aaditya, did his civil engineering in 2017 from NIT Jamshedpur, the sources said. His accomplice Raju allegedly circulated the leaked paper, the sources said.
Lek had Genesis in Hazaribagh: CBI
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had earlier pinpointed Hazaribagh as the origin of the NEET-UG paper leak. The paper was leaked from Oasis School in Hazari Bagh, the CBI probe said, adding that two sets of papers that reached there had their seals broken and instead of flagging the problem, the school staff remained silent.
“Nine sets of questionnaires were sent from SBI Hazaribagh to various centres. The ones that reached the Oasis school centre had broken their seals. The staff there did not raise any alarm and hence their role was recorded,” a senior official revealed.
“Based on technical evidence, they searched the Learn and Play School in Patna and found some burnt papers there,” he explained, adding that the case was later taken over by the Bihar Economic Offences Unit (EOU).
On June 21, the NTA announced that the code matched papers found at the Oasis school, he added.
Interestingly, the school principal Dr Ehsanul Haque was also the district coordinator for NEET-UG examination in Hazaribagh and deputy principal Imtiaz Alam was the coordinator of the centre.
The CBI, which is probing the alleged irregularities in the medical entrance examination, has registered several First Information Reports (FIRs) and made nearly 60 arrests so far.
The NEET-UG exam — conducted by the National Testing Agency for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions — was held on May 5 this year. The exam has been mired in controversy, with allegations of cheating and impersonation. The CBI FIR from Bihar pertains to paper leaks, while those registered in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra are linked to impersonation of candidates and cheating.
This year, the exam was conducted on May 5 in 4,750 centres in 571 cities, including 14 abroad. Over 23 lakh candidates appeared in the test.
67 students achieved a perfect score of 720
Sixty-six students had scored a perfect 720 in this year’s exam, unprecedented in the history of the NTA, with six from a centre in Haryana on the list, raising suspicions of irregularities in the exam. It was alleged that the bonuses contributed to the 67 students sharing the top rank.
The number of candidates sharing the top rank was reduced from 67 to 61 when the NTA released the revised results on July 1 after a resit for 1,563 candidates. Forty-eight percent of the students scheduled to resit the exam on June 24 did not show up. Of the total, 813 (52 percent) resat and 750 skipped, the data released by the NTA showed.
The exam was also plagued by allegations of paper leaks, which the CBI is investigating.