A CBI probe into the NEET paper leak case has prima facie indicated that the scale of malpractice could be much lower than anticipated, with less than 150 students affected, a top agency official has told CNN-News18.
“It is only in the Patna-Hazaribagh case that there is any evidence of the question papers being stolen. Here too, only one centre seems to have been affected. Country-wide, the total number of students affected could be less than 150… even within this number, the aspirants who got to know of the question paper ahead of the exam could be even fewer,” they said.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had made a similar submission to the Supreme Court of India. “We can’t give the exact figure but it can’t be more than 150,” he said when asked by the apex court if a total of 225 students were impacted or involved in the alleged paper leak.
The Probe So Far
Sixty-three people have been taken into custody till now of which 18 have been arrested by CBI, the latest being four students of AIIMS Patna who were allegedly “solvers”.
“Three third-year students and one second-year student were arrested and sent to CBI custody for four days. Probe so far has revealed that one of the key accused, Pankaj, gave the stolen question paper to this group to solve and provide the answer sheets,” a CBI official said.
The agency has sealed the hostel rooms of Karanjay, Kumar Shanu, Anmol Ratan and Chandan Singh. Their laptops and digital devices are being scanned to find evidence of money trail and of the conspiracy, sources said.
The ‘Thief’
The arrest of the AIIMS students comes after the questioning of Pankaj alias Aditya, an engineering graduate from NIT, Jamshedpur, who is allegedly a part of the paper leak mafia.
CBI has accused Pankaj of stealing the question paper from the National Testing Agency (NTA) drop-box and handing it over to the “solvers”. As per CBI, the NEET aspirants who had paid money in post-dated cheques were to be given the answers ahead of the exam on May 5. Upto Rs 35 lakh were paid allegedly by some NEET aspirants, sources said.
The ‘Facilitator’
Rocky alias Rakesh Ranjan is the other key link in CBI’s Patna-Hazaribagh NEET probe. The agency believes it was Rocky who arranged medical students from Patna and Ranchi to solve the stolen question papers.
Probe so far reveals that PDF of the stolen question paper was shared with the “solvers” and NEET aspirants were called to a play school in Khemnichak to “memorise the answers on the intervening night of May 4 and 5”.
Rocky, it is alleged, was the bridge between the solvers and the duo handling the NEET aspirants. Manish Prakash and Ashutosh have been arrested for providing accomodation to the aspirants on May 4.
Rocky’s residence in Nalanda was raided and some documents, including bank-related papers, were seized. CBI believes Rocky was very close to Sanjeev Mukhiya — the alleged mastermind of the entire module who is suspected to have fled to Nepal.
Rocky, a relative of Mukhiya, was also allegedly trying to flee to Nepal before his arrest, the local police said. Mukhiya alias Lootan worked as a technical assistant at a horticulture college in Nalanda. Agencies suspect he is a close associate of ‘education mafia’ Ranjit Don whom CBI had arrested in 2003 for leaking papers of the CAT exam. Ranjit Don, Mukhiya and Rocky all hail from Nalanda. Two others, including a NEET aspirant, have also been arrested from Nalanda.
The Missing Link
While CBI has managed to ascertain the mastermind, the paper thief, the solvers and the arrangers in the case, it is not yet clear as to who tipped off Pankaj Singh about the movement of the NTA papers from SBI and Canara Bank to the Oasis School centre via a private courier company. Probe has revealed that the question papers were carried without proper security in an e-rickshaw.
CBI has arrested two people associated with the Oasis School in Hazaribagh where the leak allegedly originated. As per CBI, two sets of papers had their seals broken when they arrived at this NEET centre but the staff did not raise the matter.
Nine sets of question papers were dispatched from SBI Hazaribagh to various centres. Blue Dart courier company had used an e-rickshaw to deliver the papers to the SBI branch on May 3. Two days later, an SUV was used to ferry the question papers from SBI to Oasis School. The SUV allegedly belongs to Imtiaz Alam, the vice-principal of the school. Principal Ahsanul Haque has told the media that the box and the envelope containing the question papers were tampered with. While the envelope had a precise cut, the outer box was opened using a cutter when the digital lock allegedly didn’t open by the designated time — 1.15pm on May 5.
The CBI probe is now focused on finding out when Pankaj stole the paper and if he had a specific tip-off about the movement of the paper on an e-rickshaw and then on a private SUV. But sources said that the agency is convinced that the conspirators could not cause mass disruption of NEET and nor was it completely compromised.
The agency has concluded that while cases in Godhra, Latur and Rajasthan are that of impersonation, the Patna-Hazaribagh case also had limited impact on the sanctity of the exam.
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