The district coordinator of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET UG-2024) exam, the principal of the Oasis school in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, was questioned on Wednesday by a special team of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as part of their investigation into possible irregularities with the exam. In the town of Charhi, in the Hazaribagh district, a few other school employees were also questioned at the CCL guest house, in addition to the principal.
Dr. Ehsanul Haque, the principal of Oasis school, has called the accusations against him “baseless” and denied any tampering with question papers in Hazaribag.
The State Bank of India (SBI) main branch in the Hazaribagh area of Jharkhand was visited by an eight-member CBI team, according to officials, because the bank manager was allegedly in charge of keeping the NEET-UG 2024 exam question papers. According to news outlet quoting sources, the bank had received the question papers provided by an e-rickshaw courier service operator.
Two defendants in the NEET question paper leak case, Chintu Kumar and Mukesh Kumar, have been placed on three days of CBI detention by a special CBI court in Patna.
A day prior to the exam, Chintu Kumar, a member of the infamous Sanjeev Kumar aka Lutan Mukhiya gang, is said to have obtained the NEET-UG solved answer sheet in PDF format on his phone. Reportedly, Mukesh is also associated with the gang.
Initial inquiries reveal that on May 4, students assembled in a safe location in Patna’s RamKrishna Nagar were given the solved answer sheet by Kumar and his friends to memorise. It was also discovered that the Mukhiya gang had stolen the leaked NEET-UG question paper from a private school in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand.
The CBI is attempting to apprehend the remaining fugitives from the Mukhiya gang, who are suspected of planning further interstate paper leaks.
A CBI team from Delhi visited Sikandar Yadavendu’s housing society and a guest house in Patna on Wednesday. Yadavendu is a main suspect in the investigation. According to reports, someone connected to a well-known Bihar politician apparently reserved the guest house for Yadavendu.
Reportedly, the role of some private colleges and institutes, which allegedly sent solvers on behalf of actual candidates in the NEET exam, is also under investigation. Apart from the Oasis school, St Xavier’s school, DAV Public school, Holy Cross school, and Vivekananda Central school are also being investigated.
A representative of an educational institution in Kolkata was previously detained after it was claimed that they had taken money from a parent of a student in exchange for a spot on the NEET merit list. According to reports, the culprit had also given the student at one of Kolkata’s medical colleges assurances. In the NEET paper leak case, the Economic Offence Wing (EOU) of the Bihar Police has previously detained eighteen people.
In the meantime, ahead of the Maharashtra legislature’s monsoon session, Uddhav Thackeray, the chief of the Shiv Sena (UBT), called a meeting of the party’s MLAs and MLCs on Wednesday and requested that they bring up the subject of anomalies in NEET. Concurrently, a resolution denouncing the discrepancies in the NEET and NET admission tests administered by the NTA was unanimously passed by the Kerala Assembly.
