The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed a third charge sheet in connection with the alleged paper leak of the NEET-UG exam question paper and named 21 persons as accused, officials said on Saturday (October 5). The central agency filed the charge sheet in a special CBI court in Patna.
What does the CBI’s charge sheet say?
The central agency has alleged that trunks carrying NEET-UG 2024 question papers were delivered to the Oasis School in Hazaribagh and stored in a control room on the morning of May 5. Shortly after the trunks' arrival, Principal Ahsanul Haque and Vice Principal Imtiaz Alam permitted Pankaj Kumar, the mastermind, to access the control room where the trunks were kept, the CBI has alleged. Haque and Alam have already been charge-sheeted in the case.
Kumar, a civil engineer from the 2017 batch of the National Institute of Technology in Jamshedpur, used sophisticated tools to open the trunks and access the question papers, CBI said. The agency has seized these tools along with CCTV footage from the room.
On the morning of the examination, a group of seven MBBS students from AIIMS Patna, RIMS Ranchi, and a medical college in Bharatpur solved the paper at Hazaribagh. The agency has since arrested these alleged solvers.
"The solved paper was shared with select students who paid money to the accused. Most of the solvers have been identified and arrested. They were specifically brought to Hazaribagh as part of the conspiracy," a CBI spokesperson had stated.
The investigation has also identified other members of the gang who assisted Kumar, with several arrests made.
"This group was supported by individuals who provided accommodation for the candidates, while others facilitated their transportation. Efforts are ongoing to trace the candidates who accessed the solved question paper, and necessary actions are being taken," the CBI had said in a statement.
(With PTI inputs)
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