Sikar: A teacher in Sikar was busy checking NEET answer keys when his landlord walked in with a PDF on his phone. “Do you think this is real?” the old man asked. At first, the teacher dismissed it as another random “guess paper” that often floods the coaching circles as exams approach. But as he kept scrolling, he froze. In the chemistry section, all 45 questions matched the actual NEET paper conducted on 3 May.
That was the moment when he realised NEET-UG 2026 had been compromised. It would take the teacher and the coaching institute he is associated with four more days before approaching the local police and shooting a letter to the National Testing Agency (NTA) — the nodal body responsible for conducting the all-India exam that decides who gets to study in India’s government medical colleges.
“This is how we blew this paper leak. We talked to the students and sent a brief email to NTA on Thursday (7 May) night after talking to local media, known officials,” said the teacher who was involved in sending the email to the NTA.
The 2026 NEET paper leak has left teachers and students in this second most popular coaching hub in Rajasthan, after Kota, in a state of shock. A new batch of aspirants are entering the city with a head full of anxiety even as the coaching institutes aren’t equipped to deal with the barrage of students returning with queries. It is perhaps the biggest jolt to the Modi era exam reforms that took shape in the last decade with a promise to plug all holes in India’s competitive exams architecture. This is now also a test for India’s premier probe agency, the CBI, which has now been handed over the case.
Just a few hours after the email reached NTA, along with the local police, officers from the Special Operations Group (SOG) of the Rajasthan police and Ministry of Home Affairs descended in Sikar to start a probe that faces the mammoth task of restoring the credibility of one of the most important exams in India. And Sikar is just one of the many threads that’s now emerging in the NEET 2026 paper leak investigation.
“We interrogated the teacher for hours and traced the PDF. The teacher was an innocent and true whistleblower of the matter,” a senior police official involved in the case told ThePrint.
After the leak surfaced, Rajasthan SOG has arrested 15 people from Sikar, Jaipur, Dehradun and other locations. The investigators have found that the PDF originated in Nashik, before moving to Gurugram and Jaipur and then reached Sikar through an MBBS student who studies in Kerala.
For many students, however, the crackdown has failed to provide any kind of relief or closure. The NTA or any probe agency cannot bring back all the hard work of the aspirants. Many, confident of their high scores, had already vacated hostels, sold books and notes, and returned home, believing their NEET journey was over. Some had planned vacations, or were already spending time with family after months and in some cases even years of isolation and preparation. Now, many are returning to their respective coaching institutes — anxious, frustrated, emotionally exhausted. The institutes and the hostel owners, meanwhile, are getting hundreds of inquiries.
“Those who scored well are very disappointed and are forced to return to the mess they desperately wanted to leave,” said Neeraj Yadav, one of the hostel owners in Sikar. He doesn’t want to disappoint anyone.
“You come, we will arrange something,” he assured a caller, knowing fully well it’ll be difficult to accommodate everyone since the new batches have started and all rooms rented out.
Amid this chaos, a larger question on Sikar’s character as the new coaching hub has also surfaced, casting a shadow of doubt on the alleged role of coaching institutes in the region. Sikar’s high success rates in NEET exam is now being debated again. Similar questions were raised before the Supreme Court after the alleged 2024 NEET leak. Coaching institutes in the city, however, have strongly rejected these allegations.
“The NTA itself submitted data showing that Sikar has one of the highest success rates in the country, and we take pride in that. This is not because of any paper leak. It is because the teaching ecosystem here is different. Students work hard and score well. The data for 2022 and 2023 showed the same trend, and even in 2025 the All India Rank 1 was from Sikar,” said Rajesh, owner of Gurukripa Career Institute.
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A PDF that raised the spectre of leak
With handwritten markings, highlighted answers and section-wise segregation, the leakers tried very hard to make it look less like a random “guess paper” and more like a curated exam document. And it was circulated in student groups across multiple cities—in different formats. Some received screenshots, some received limited subjects, and high-paying buyers got the whole PDF.
“The biology section was the biggest shock because many questions matched not just conceptually but in exact sequence and word for word,” said the teacher from Sikar who saw the PDF.
The PDF, which appeared to be just another “guess paper”, had been circulating on WhatsApp and Telegram groups nearly two days before the 3 May exam under names such as “VIP set” and “important questions”. It was made to look like one of the many unofficial prediction papers. The initial questions were also like this.
But it took this young teacher from Sikar to initiate the complaint.
“Later when we talked to the students, they told us that this had reached them but they didn’t believe it as it was selling for Rs 30,000 and the price seemed too cheap to be true, so they didn’t bother,” said the teacher who filed the complaint.
The PDF had a total of 400 questions. Among them, 140 were exactly the same as those in the real NEET question paper that students faced on 3 May, in some cases “word for word”.
Investigators believe the PDF travelled through multiple states before reaching Rajasthan. According to officials probing the case, the document allegedly originated in Nashik before moving through Gurugram and Jaipur, and eventually reached Sikar through an MBBS student studying in Kerala. The SOG is also probing several Telegram and WhatsApp groups through which the file was allegedly shared among students and middlemen ahead of the exam.
In coaching hubs like Sikar, “guess papers” and “important question PDFs” routinely circulate before competitive exams. Most are ignored by students and teachers as marketing gimmicks or last-minute prediction material.
The PDF file that was received by the complainant teacher led the agencies to a WhatsApp group named “Private Mafia” that had more than 400 members. Investigators suspect the paper was sold at different prices depending on access and timing, ranging from Rs 30,000 for shared PDFs to as high as Rs 15 lakh for direct-access networks. The agencies spoke to dozens of students, which led them to two men from Jaipur, Dinesh Biwal and Mangilal Biwal. They both bought the paper from Gurugram-based career counsellor Yash Yadav.
“The Gurugram-based career counsellor obtained the paper from Nashik resident Shubham Kheirnar, who received the paper through a courier from Pune,” said a police source involved in the matter.
But while agencies continued tracing the route of the leaked paper across states, in Sikar, the focus had already shifted to the students dealing with the aftermath of the cancellation.
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Return to square one
Forty-two-year-old Sushmita Sharma has barely moved from her seat on Wednesday, a day after the news of the leak came out. Parents kept coming to her office all day—confused, anxious and frustrated.
“I am not able to study ma’am. Why did this happen? I scored 640 marks. How will I do it again,” said eighteen-year-old Aman with a teary eye.
It may take investigators weeks, months, even years before they crack the NEET 2026 paper leak case. Till then, it is the staff and teachers of Sikar’s coaching industry who is lending an ear to the students’ grievances.
Every student who had hoped to clear the exam with a decent score is in stress right now and wants Sushmita Sharma to say some magical word that can motivate them to study.
The Sikar coaching industry, or for that matter, even the one in Kota, do not have a dedicated counseling psychologists at institutes. The professionals students need in these stressful times. It’s the administration staff that’s trying to offer as much emotional support as they can.
“No, Don’t say you can’t study. Why are you telling your brain this? Just think it was a break of seven days and your NEET exam was a test now you have to study one more month. And aim to get more than 640 marks. See this as an opportunity to improve your marks,” said Sushmita along with many motivational things so Aman can resume study.
Aman returned from Hisar, Haryana Tuesday night, soon after he learnt about the leak. The 18-year-old is accompanied by his mother.
“He was crying all night. I was very disturbed seeing him like this. I have been living with him here for the last three years for this one dream. Whatever happened is disappointing but we can’t do anything,” said Aman’s mother as they both walked to Sharma’s office as another student awaited his turn.
In Sikar and Kota, many mothers live with their children to support them in their preparation for years. Now, it will have to be done all over again—rooms, study material and motivation.
At Gurukripa coaching institute, one of the biggest in Sikar, the offices are briming with queries.
“Ma’am, I sold my notes to someone after the exam. What can I do now?” “Ma’am, I don’t have any place to live. Is there anyone who can give rooms for a month?” “Ma’am, will there be any fees for these one- or two-month classes?”
Students are arriving with countless questions, and coaching institutes are scrambling for answers.
“We have announced a test series. At this point, we just have to give these students motivation and hope. Whatever happens now can break them. Children spend years preparing for this exam and agencies can’t do the one job they have,” said Sushmita Sharma.
The NTA has said it will refund the registration fee to every student. But the cost of appearing for the exam goes far beyond that — rent, study material, postponed vacations, PG food, travel expenses and the emotional toll of restarting preparation all over again.
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The shadow of past NEET controversies
The exam to secure an MBBS seat has had a long relationship with the controversies. Between 2015 and 2024, allegations of paper leaks, irregularities, court cases and protests have run parallel to the exams.
For the teachers and old aspirants, it is deja vu. In 2015, the Supreme Court cancelled the All India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT), the predecessor of NEET, after investigators found that answer keys had allegedly been passed to candidates through Bluetooth devices and electronic gadgets.
More than six lakh students had appeared for the exam. The court ordered a re-test “to maintain the sanctity and credibility” of the examination process. The re-test was conducted again later that year.
The uncertainty continued in 2016 when the Supreme Court revived NEET. The court ordered that the exam be conducted in two phases. The May 1 AIPMT exam was treated as NEET-1. The second phase was held in July for students who had not appeared earlier. All of this triggered protests from students and state governments.
Later that year, petitions alleging irregularities in NEET-II also reached the Supreme Court, though the exam was not cancelled.
The biggest NEET controversy happened in 2024 when allegations of paper leaks, grace marks and irregularities in the awarding of ranks triggered nationwide protests and multiple court petitions. Total 67 students got the AIR 1 and many candidates received unusually high marks because of grace-score compensation.
Questions were also raised over examination centres in Bihar and Rajasthan, prompting investigations by the CBI and state police agencies, while the Supreme Court heard a series of petitions seeking cancellation and re-examination.
“Every few years something happens in NEET and students are the ones who suffer. We prepared for years but one controversy changed everything overnight,” said Mohit Yadav, an aspirant in Sikar.
The matter reached to the Supreme Court
During the 2024 NEET hearings, the National Testing Agency told the Supreme Court that Sikar’s high success rates were not an anomaly and had remained consistent over the years. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for NTA, submitted before the court that Sikar’s success rate was 19.22 percent in 2024, compared to 19.19 percent in the previous year, arguing that there was no sudden spike indicating large-scale malpractice.
“People are trying to ruin Sikar’s image by connecting it with paper leaks. But the results are associated with the hard work of teachers and students. In 2025, there was no controversy but still the AIR 1 was from Sikar,” said Rajesh Kulhari, owner of Gurukripa coaching institute.
Sixteen-year-old Rohit Kumar arrived in Sikar just days ago to begin his NEET preparation. But instead of finding motivation, he found panic. In hostels, libraries and coaching corridors, students were discussing cancelled exams, leaked papers and uncertainty about the future. He is now questioning his choice.
“I don’t want this to become my future. I came here to study hard and become a doctor. At least the system should give us a fair chance. Right now, everything feels very scary,” said Kumar before quietly walking into the library.
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)