NEET UG paper leak: CBI files third chargesheet against 21 accused

The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed a third charge sheet in connection with the alleged leak of NEET-UG exam papers, officials said on Saturday.

In the charge sheet submitted to a special CBI court in Patna, the CBI has named 21 people as accused.

The agency has claimed that suitcases containing NEET-UG 2024 question papers were delivered to Oasis School in Hazaribagh on the morning of May 5 and stored in a control room.

Soon after the suitcases arrived, principal Ahsanul Haque and vice-principal Imtiaz Alam allowed Pankaj Kumar, the mastermind, to enter the control room where the suitcases were kept, the CBI said.

Haque and Alam have already been charged in the case.

Kumar, a 2017 batch civil engineer from National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur, used sophisticated tools to open the cases and access the question papers, the probe agency said.

The CBI has seized these tools along with CCTV footage from the room.

On the morning of the exam, a group of seven MBBS students from AIIMS Patna, RIMS Ranchi and a medical college in Bharatpur cleared the paper in Hazaribagh. The agency has since arrested these suspected solvers.

“The solved paper was given to selected students who paid money to the accused. Most of the solvers were identified and arrested. They were specifically brought to Hazaribagh as part of the conspiracy,” a CBI spokesperson had said.

The investigation also identified other members of the gang who supported Kumar and several arrests were made.

“This group was supported by individuals who provided accommodation for the candidates while others facilitated their transportation. Efforts are continuing to find out which candidates have accessed the solved questions and necessary action will be taken,” the CBI had said in a statement.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI.)