New Delhi: The economic offences unit (EOU) of the Bihar Police uncovered significant lapses in its investigation into the alleged NEET (UG) 2024 question paper leak. It found that the questions from the burnt booklet recovered during the raid at a play school in Patna “match entirely” with those in the original booklet, according to details from the National Testing Agency, and the BlueDart courier transporting the questions papers did not deliver them directly to the State Bank of India branch in Hazaribagh.
“We found the details of the question set and traced the candidate who got the T3 set of question papers. We also managed to trace the box and envelope in which the T3 set was dispatched for examination, and it was torn on the rear side and sealed with a cello tape to resemble an original seal,” a Bihar Police official said to ThePrint, adding that it was a “100 percent match”.
Another Bihar Police official noted that if the courier company could dispatch the question papers directly from Ranchi to Hazaribagh, the fact that they were instead delivered to their local office rather than the SBI branch indicates possible collusion between the courier company’s staff and the gang.
“We have seen the module of question papers leaking in the hands of couriers who are given the transportation responsibility. This is going in the same direction,” the official said.
As ThePrint reported earlier, the EOU investigation gained momentum after the NTA shared details of the booklet and chain of command Friday, following an update to the ministry of education on the probe’s status.
Meanwhile, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which has filed a case to investigate a larger conspiracy, is expected to take over the case files and diary from the Bihar Police EOU today. The Bihar government issued a notification of consent for a CBI probe into the matter Sunday.
Bihar EOU Friday arrested five persons accused in the case, including Baldev Kumar alias Chintu, a close aide of the alleged kingpin Sanjeev Mukhiya from Jharkhand’s Deoghar. According to the EOU, Chintu received a PDF of the solved question paper on WhatsApp and had NEET aspirants come to the play school in Patna to memorise the answers on-site.
This is not the first time that Hazaribagh has figured in a paper leak probe. Earlier this year, Bihar EOU had arrested over 200 accused from the district in a probe into the paper leak of the Teacher Recruitment Exam conducted by the Bihar Public Service Commission.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)