New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Tuesday arrested two more persons for their suspected involvement in the NEET-UG 2024 paper leak, including a civil engineer who allegedly stole the question paper from a trunk in Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh, ThePrint has learnt.
Sources in the agency said accused Pankaj Kumar alias ‘Aditya’, who hails from Jharkhand’s Bokaro district, was nabbed from Patna in Bihar. He passed out as a civil engineer from NIT Jamshedpur in 2017.
“He was the one who stole a question from the trunk of the National Testing Agency in Hazaribagh,” a source from the agency told ThePrint.
The central agency, which took over the probe into alleged malpractices and irregularities in the NEET-UG 2024 exam held on 5 May at 4,750 exam centres across 571 cities, also arrested one Raju Singh from Hazaribagh. Singh, investigators suspect, helped Aditya steal the question paper.
The arrests come less than a week after the CBI claimed to have arrested one of the “kingpins” of the NEET-UG 2024 paper leak, Rakesh Ranjan, alias Rocky, from the outskirts of Patna. Sources in the agency said at the time that Rocky was physically overseeing the paper leak.
Rocky has also been termed a close associate of the alleged mastermind of the leak, Sanjeev Kumar alias ‘Mukhiya’, a native of Bihar’s Nalanda district.
All roads lead to Hazaribagh
As ThePrint reported earlier, the Bihar Economic Offence Unit (EOU), which was initially probing the case, stumbled upon evidence indicating Hazaribagh as the epicentre of the NEET-UG 2024 paper leak.
The EOU’s assessment was an envelope with the question paper inside it was tampered with and that, coupled with lapses on the part of the courier company Blue Dart and the State Bank of India (SBI), led to the leak.
The ‘tampered’ envelope was used at the Oasis School in Hazaribagh and the leaked question paper seized by the EOU from a play school in Patna matched “entirely” with the T3 set of the question paper.
On 27 June, CBI also arrested Dr Ehsanul Haque, principal of Oasis School and also the district coordinator for the NTA. Imtiaz Alam, who was the centre superintendent at Oasis School and NTA’s observer in Hazaribagh, was also arrested, along with a journalist who allegedly helped the duo.
The Bihar EOU in its probe had found that the solved question paper was received by one Baldeo Kumar, a key associate of alleged mastermind Mukhiya on his WhatsApp which was further circulated among gang members and aspirants who were promised access to it.
Note: An earlier version of this report said Raju Singh helped accused Aditya distribute the leaked question paper. The error is regretted.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)